Enhancing the cooling potential of a solar-assisted desiccant cooling system by ground source free cooling
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Enhancing the cooling potential of a solar-assisted desiccant cooling system by ground source free cooling
1. Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada 2. Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, PO Box 14115-143, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Keywords
This work investigates the hourly operation of the Uçkan configuration of the desiccant system that uses ground and solar energies in combination. In this system, the ground source heat exchanger (GSHE) is used as a cooling component after the desiccant wheel (DW) (post-cooler) together with using simultaneously before (pre-cooler) and after the DW. The validity of this configuration is evaluated in several hot-humid regions, and an economic assessment is performed to confirm the system cost-feasibility. This study examines the impact of the return air ratio on the level of thermal comfort established, system COP, energy consumed for regeneration, and solar fraction (SF). Here, a guideline for sizing various components in the system is demonstrated. For the best scenario in which the GSHE is placed before and after the DW, the system would successfully provide thermal comfort for 95% of its working time, using low energy consumption when compared to conventional configurations. The best scenario resulted in the highest COP of 0.43, the highest SF of 63.6%, and the payback period of 6.8 years. With the results, increasing the return air ratio promotes system COP and SF, while it decreases the consumed energy.
desiccant-evaporative cooling,
1
Introduction
E-mail: [email protected]
renewable energy, hourly operation, thermal comfort, hot and humid regions
Article History Received: 11 June 2020 Revised: 11 July 2020 Accepted: 23 July 2020 © Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
handled by DWs, they become saturated, and they need to discharge the absorbed moisture through their regeneration, which requires thermal energy. This work presents a study on the hourly operation of a desiccant-evaporative cooling system that uses solar and ground renewable energies. The purpose of solar energy is to contribute to the regeneration process, and the ground source heat exchanger (GSHE) is to be used as a cooling component in the system. 2
Literature review
In two past decades, a significant amount of research has been devoted to investigating desiccant cooling systems. These technologies are known to be cost-effective and environmentally-friendly systems when they are compared with the widely used ones, the mechanical vapor compression systems (Nóbrega and Brum 2013). Several researchers have studied different configurations and combinations of desiccant cooling systems to assess their usage potential and overall performance (Sultan et al.
Building Systems and Components
Around 40% of consumed energy in the world is used in buildings, and approximately 50%–60% of energy in buildings is devoted to HVAC systems (Berardi 2017; He
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