Cooling and Dehumidification Characteristics of Desiccant Cooling System in a Residential Environment

Desiccant and water evaporation based cooling system is recently suggested as an alternative to refrigeration systems using typical vapor compression cycle for the purpose of energy saving and greenhouse gas reduction. The system receives the heat for the regeneration of the rotor from district heating, which is waste heat from a CHP plant or an incineration plant. KDHC (Korea District Heating Corporation) installed 4 systems at 4 individual houses in Su-Won, Korea and conducted field tests from Aug. 2010 to Sep. 2010. In this study, indoor conditions have been measured when the system is off as well as in operation. Also indoor conditions have been characterized according to outdoor conditions and users’ operation. Referring the ASHRAE standard, the cooling system in operation has been checked whether it could make indoor conditions comfortable or not. By analyzing the monitored variables, performance characteristics of the system were figured out. Major characteristics such as cooling capacity, heat & electricity consumption, and the COP of the system have been compared with those from the previous laboratory experiment.