ENERGY CONSUMPTION ANALYSIS OF AN ECONOMIZER APPLIED IN A CLEAN ROOM AIR-CONDITIONING SYSTEM FOR DIFFERENT CLIMATE ZONES

Bruno Closs¹; Dr. Paulo Roberto Wander¹

¹ UNISINOS

doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-1277

Resumo

Climate variation plays an important role on the energy consumption of a clean room air-conditioning system when operating on a 24/7 regime. In order to analyze potential reductions of energy usage taking advantage of the climate characteristics, and its variability, the implementation of two different types of economizers were evaluated. Using Energy Plus software, the annually energy need of the system was simulated in three different conditions: (i) current configuration, (ii) enthalpy and (iii) dry-bulb temperature controlled economizers operating in the system. A comparison regarding the plant location among the actual address, São Leopoldo, Manaus and Gwangju, South Korea was made. The lowest consumption was achieved in cities with high climatic variation like São Leopoldo and Gwangju, with enthalpy economizer reducing 41% the chiller energy need, and 21% the global energy usage. The consumption of the current configuration in Manaus, located in a hot climate zone, was 20.4% higher than São Leopoldo. Along the hot climate, the small climatic variation compromises the effectiveness of the economizers and no energy reduction was obtained when they were implemented. Comparing the economizer results with São Leopldo, the consumption was 52.6 % higher in Manaus. The highest economizer effectiveness have been reached in Gwangju.

Palavras-chave: Economizer; Energy Consumption; Air-Conditioning; Energy Plus; Clean Room