Maximizing the Life Cycle Primary Energy Savings of an Integrated Solar Absorption Cooling and Heating System for a Medium-Sized Office Building in Los Angeles, California

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yin Hang ◽  
Ming Qu
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Office Building ◽  
Solar Absorption ◽  
Absorption Cooling ◽  
Solar Absorption Cooling ◽  
Experimental Trials

Buildings are responsible for 41% of the primary energy use in the United States. Due to the negative environmental impact from fossil fuel, people are trying to use renewable energy resources to provide energy to the buildings. Integrated solar absorption cooling and heating (SACH) technology can be one of the promising solutions to this issue. Due to the nature of solar energy, integrated SACH has many drawbacks, such as discontinuity of generation, thus backup system driven by fossil fuel should be included to the system configuration as well. Therefore, optimization is highly required during the design stage. This paper presents the development of a method to optimize an integrated SACH system. Regression analysis is used to identify the relationship between the life cycle primary energy savings (PES) and the system factors according to the data provided by experiments. In order to obtain an accurate model to estimate the problem using small number of experimental trials, the method of central composite design (CCD) from design of experiments (DE) is used as a key technique. The experimental trials are conducted in TRaNsient SYstems Simulation (TRNSYS). Finally, the optimization problem is formulated and solved by including the model as the objective function and the physical constraints of the system factors. A case study was conducted to apply this optimization method to the design of an integrated SACH system installed in a medium-sized office building in Los Angeles.

Optimization Under Uncertainty: A Case Study of a Solar Absorption Cooling and Heating System for a Medium-Sized Office Building in Atlanta

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yin Hang ◽  
Ming Qu ◽  
Fu Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Uncertainty Analysis ◽  
Heating System ◽  
System Optimization ◽  
Optimization Under Uncertainty ◽  
Office Building ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Solar Absorption ◽  
Absorption Cooling ◽  
Solar Absorption Cooling

Solar absorption cooling and heating (SACH) systems currently still stay at development and demonstration stage due to the nature of the complex system. It is critical for practitioners and engineers to have a correct and complete performance analyses and evaluation for SACH systems with respects of energy, economics, and environment. Optimization is necessarily involved to find the optimal system design by considering these three aspects. However, many assumptions made in the optimization are sensitive to the energy, economic, and environmental variations, and thus the optimization results will be affected. Therefore, the sensitivity and uncertainty analysis is important and necessary to make optimization robust. This paper uses a case study to explore the influence of the uncertainties on the SACH system optimization results. The case is a SACH system for a medium size office building in Atlanta. The one parameter at a time (OAT) sensitivity analysis method was applied firstly to determine the most sensitive inputs. Monte Carlo statistical method was utilized to generate the data sets for uncertainty analysis. The optimization problem under uncertainty was then formulated and solved. Due to the uncertainty associated with system inputs, the optimization solutions were found with certain types of the distributions. In addition, the scenario analysis on electricity price does not show large sensitivity to the objectives.

Life Cycle Cost for a Solar Heating and Cooling System

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yin Hang ◽  
Ming Qu
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Heating System ◽  
Solar Heating ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Solar Absorption ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
Absorption Cooling ◽  
Solar Absorption Cooling

Solar absorption cooling has been an intriguing research subject since 1970. However, it is not widely applied because the first cost of the system is high, the commercial hot water absorption chiller is not mature, the site demonstration and evaluation are not adequate and the price of conventional fossil energy sources is relatively low. This paper investigates the commercialization potentials of solar absorption cooling and solar heating system by comparing the life cycle cost between it and the conventional electrical chiller cooling and gas-fired boiler heating system. A computational model has been programmed in the Engineering Equation Solver (EES) to analyze the economical performances of the two systems applied to a dedicated building. The model considers the cost of capital, installation, operation and maintenance, the discount rate, the fuel prices, and the inflation rates. The result of the model indicated that given the present fuel cost, the solar absorption cooling and heating system is not as economic as the conventional system especially when its size is small. However, according to the sensitivity analysis carried, the solar absorption cooling and heating system could compete with the conventional cooling and heating system when the electricity price and fuel inflation increase.

scholarly journals Techno-Economic Analysis of Solar Absorption Cooling for Commercial buildings in India

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 253
Author(s):  
Muthalagappan Narayanan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Commercial Buildings ◽  
Air Conditioner ◽  
Commercial Building ◽  
Solar Absorption ◽  
Space Cooling ◽  
Absorption Cooling ◽  
August 15Th ◽  
Solar Absorption Cooling

Space cooling and heating always tends to be a major part of the primary energy usage. By using fossil fuel electricity for these purposes, the situation becomes even worse. One of the major electricity consumptions in India is air conditioning. There are a lot of different technologies and few researchers have come up with a debate between solar absorption cooling and PV electric cooling. In a previous paper, PV electric cooling was studied and now as a continuation, this paper focuses on solar thermal absorption cooling systems and their application in commercial/office buildings in India. A typical Indian commercial building is taken for the simulation in TRNSYS. Through this simulation, the feasibility and operational strategy of the system is analysed, after which parametric study and economic analysis of the system is done. When compared with the expenses for a traditional air conditioner unit, this solar absorption cooling will take 13.6 years to pay back and will take 15.5 years to payback the price of itself and there after all the extra money are savings or profit.  Although the place chosen for this study is one of the typical tropical place in India, this payback might vary with different places, climate and the cooling demand.Article History: Received May 12th 2017; Received in revised form August 15th 2017; Accepted 1st Sept 2017; Available onlineHow to Cite This Article: Narayanan, M. (2017). Techno-Economic Analysis of Solar Absorption Cooling for Commercial Buildings in India.  International Journal of Renewable Energy Development, 6(3), 253-262.https://doi.org/10.14710/ijred.6.3.253-262

The study of solar absorption air-conditioning systems

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
V Mittal ◽  
KS Kasana ◽  
NS Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Air Conditioning ◽  
Lithium Bromide ◽  
Cooling Systems ◽  
Solar Absorption ◽  
Air Conditioning System ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
Absorption Cooling ◽  
Solar Powered ◽  
Solar Absorption Cooling ◽  
Air Conditioning Systems

An air-conditioning system utilizing solar energy would generally be more efficient, cost wise, if it was used to provide both heating and cooling requirements in the building it serves. Various solar powered heating systems have been tested extensively, but solar powered air conditioning systems have received very little attention. Solar powered absorption cooling systems can serve both heating and cooling requirements in the building it serves. Many researchers have studied the solar absorption air conditioning system in order to make it economically and technically viable. But still, much more research in this area is needed. This paper will help many researchers working in this area and provide them with fundamental knowledge on absorption systems, and a detailed review on the past efforts in the field of solar absorption cooling systems with the absorption pair of lithium-bromide and water. This knowledge will help them to start the parametric study in order to investigate the influence of key parameters on the overall system performance.

scholarly journals Modelling and simulation of a solar absorption cooling system for India

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 65-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
V Mittal ◽  
K S Kasana ◽  
N S Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Surface Area ◽  
Cooling System ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Coefficient Of Performance ◽  
Reference Temperature ◽  
Inlet Temperature ◽  
Solar Absorption ◽  
Absorption Cooling ◽  
Solar Absorption Cooling ◽  
Absorption Cooling System

This paper presents modelling and simulation of a solar absorption cooling system. In this paper, the modelling of a solar-powered, single stage, absorption cooling system, using a flat plate collector and water–lithium bromide solution, is done. A computer program has been developed for the absorption system to simulate various cycle configurations with the help of various weather data for the village Bahal, District Bhiwani, Haryana, India. The effects of hot water inlet temperatures on the coefficient of performance (COP) and the surface area of the absorption cooling component are studied. The hot water inlet temperature is found to affect the surface area of some of the system components. Moreover the effect of the reference temperature which is the minimum allowable hot water inlet temperature on the fraction of total load met by non-purchased energy (FNP) and coefficient of performance (COP) is studied and it is found that high reference temperature increases the system COP and decreases the surface area of system components but lower reference temperature gives better results for FNP than high reference temperatures.

scholarly journals Transformation of an Office Building into a Nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB): Implications for Thermal and Visual Comfort and Energy Performance

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilaria Ballarini ◽  
Giovanna De Luca ◽  
Argun Paragamyan ◽  
Anna Pellegrino ◽  
Vincenzo Corrado
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Primary Energy ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Office Building ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality ◽  
Visual Comfort ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Efficiency Measures

Directive 2010/31/EU promotes the refurbishment of existing buildings to change them into nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEBs). Within this framework, it is of crucial importance to guarantee the best trade-off between energy performance and indoor environmental quality (IEQ). The implications of a global refurbishment scenario on thermal and visual comfort are assessed in this paper pertaining to an existing office building. The retrofit actions applied to achieve the nZEB target consist of a combination of envelope and technical building systems refurbishment measures, involving both HVAC and lighting. Energy and comfort calculations were carried out through dynamic simulation using Energy Plus and DIVA, for the thermal and visual performance assessments, respectively. The results point out that energy retrofit actions on the building envelope would lead to significant improvements in the thermal performance, regarding both energy savings (−37% of the annual primary energy for heating) and thermal comfort. However, a daylighting reduction would occur with a consequent higher electricity demand for lighting (36%). The research presents a detailed approach applicable to further analyses aimed at optimizing the energy efficiency measures in order to reduce the imbalance between visual and thermal comfort and to ensure the best performance in both domains.

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