Energy Consumption Analysis of Residential Central Air Conditioning Systems

Nowadays the energy crisis has been more and more severe all over the world. In China there is enormous energy source, but due to the large number of population, the average possession of the total energy is lower, and the energy supply is relatively less. Enormous energy consumption of air conditioning systems in the residential buildings makes the energy conservation more important. The residential central air conditioning systems are being widely used due to its advantages of easy control and low operating cost. But there are still many problems to be resolved, of which the energy consumption of the residential central air-conditioning systems is a hot issue. The main cold and heat sources for residential central air conditioning systems are air-cooled heat pump unit, household gas air conditioning unit, air-cooled chiller unit/gas-fired boiler and water loop heat pump unit. The terminal facilities suited for the anterior three units are the fan coil units, and the terminal of the last water loop heat pump unit is normally indoor unit. The combined utilization of the heat and cold source units with their terminal units keep the indoor environment in desired state all the year. In this paper, based on an actual example, the basic principles of four systems mentioned above are outlined and analyzed, and four schemes are compared. By using the method of equivalent weight full load operation time, the annual energy consumptions of the four schemes are calculated and analyzed. Comparing the annual primary energy consumption of four schemes, the following conclusions can be drawn: in the case studied, the energy consumption of the household gas-fired air conditioning unit with fan coil system is the maximum, the consumption of the air-cooled chiller unit/gas-fired boiler with fan coil system is the next, then is the air-cooled heat pump with fan coil system, and that of the water loop heat pump system is the minimum. It can be observed that the water loop heat pump system is the optimal one and is the best on energy conservation. Through the study of this paper, the minimum energy consumption system is chosen so as to give the references for the energy savings of air-conditioning systems in the practice.