TEWI evaluation for refrigeration and air-conditioning systems in office buildings with different regional heat demand

摘要

In the present study, we quantitatively evaluated the global warming impact by refrigeration and air-conditioning systems in office buildings on the basis of reliable TEWI information. This paper proposes an improved TEWI evaluation procedure by considering regional heat demands and part load of air-conditioning systems. In the TEWI evaluation of commercial chillers, a percentage of the impact by refrigerant released to the atmosphere (direct effect) is less than 19.9% in TEWI values. Therefore, a reduction of the impact by CO{sub}2 released as a result of the energy consumed to drive the refrigeration or air-conditioning systems through out their lifetime (indirect effect) is the most effective measure in reducing the global warming impact. On the other hand, we have also pointed out energy loss that might be generated by an excess investment to the equipment. We have also showed a usefulness in dividing the heating/cooling system into several small-capacity units so as to improve the energy utilization efficiency.