Research on Energy Saving Potential for Dedicated Ventilation Systems Based on Heat Recovery Technology

摘要

Research results have identified the use of heat pipe heat exchangers (HPHXs) for heat recovery as a way to reduce the pre-cooling and re-heating energy. This paper suggests decoupling dehumidification from cooling to reduce energy consumption. The feasible usage and the energy saving potential of heat pipe heat exchanger at the air handler dedicated in accomplishing this objective is investigated. In this paper a dedicated ventilation system combined with a HPHX to reduce energy consumption is tested and investigated under varying conditions by laboratory experiments. The energy saving potential and heat pipe (HP) effectiveness are tested and calculated under various outdoor conditions. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate that for all cases examined, the average HP effectiveness and energy savings have the same trend at various outdoor temperatures and Relative Humidity (RH) values. It has been found that the heat pipe can be applied to save over 60% energy for the air-conditioning operating hours. The reduction in overall energy is from 1.8% to 2.8% for the whole system. Therefore, the results confirm that the proposed set-up is useful for buildings to achieve intended energy saving objectives in subtropical climates where air-conditioning demand is highly variable.