Performance analysis of alternative HVAC systems incorporating renewable energies in sub-tropical climates

Abstract

Over the past 40 years, energy consumption has increased dramatically to become a significant crisis faced today. The peak demand is growing at approximately 50% greater than the demand base growth in many Australian cities, which, in turn, requires greater finite resources and infrastructure to meet the required generation capacity needed. Currently, approximately 40% of electrical energy is consumed by HVAC systems in commercial building. This level of energy consumption emphasizes the necessity of developing an eco-friendly air-conditioning system, where possible, harnessing low-grade thermal energy such as solar energy rather than electricity. In this paper, a comparison of energy performances of three different HVAC is undertaken. Mathematical models are developed with TRNSYS17 to simulate the HVAC system within a typical small commercial building with various cooling options. The model is implemented to provide a comparative analysis across various cooling systems such as Vapour Compression System, Vapour Absorption System and Desiccant Evaporative Cooling System. This paper implements the developed model to investigate and compare the energy consumption and running costs over an eight-month cooling period of the widely used Vapour Compression System against alternative solar assisted cooling options for a sub-tropical location of Brisbane, Australia.