The use of earth–air heat exchanger and fuzzy logic control can reduce energy consumption and environmental concerns even more

Abstract

Climate mitigation policies are trying to regulate activities that produce changes of the concentration of the atmospheric carbon. One of those activities is the production of electricity used in buildings; and one of major consumer of electricity in buildings is the air conditioning system, but sometimes a cooling or heating system is essential. In recent years, there are researchers trying to improve those systems; but some authors suggest that is better to use new technologies instead of increase the efficient of the technologies that exist today. In this sense, a new simple technology called earth-to-air heat exchanger (EAHX) uses the ground to heating or cooling buildings. In the present work, it is thought that a fuzzy logic controller can be applied to an EAHX to reduce even more the electrical energy consumption, therefore a simulation was carried out, where a thermodynamic model of an EAHX was obtained and used together with a simulation of a fuzzy logic controller, then it was compared with an simulation of an On–Off controller. The results show that power consumption can be reduced with the fuzzy controller, thus increasing the efficiency of the process, the sustainability of the planet and reducing environmental problems of the society.