Computational Analysis of the Automation Strategies of Temperatures of Supplied Air, Chilled and Condensation Water in Commercial Buildings

Abstract

The automation strategies currently used in HVAC systems do not control the system temperature variables (supplied air, chilled, and condensation water temperatures) in an optimized way. Normally, these temperatures are fixed in design conditions, or vary according to the weather conditions. However, studies demonstrate that adequate control of these three temperatures can provide significant reductions in the energy consumption of the air conditioner system. Therefore, this work analyzes the benefits of individualized and integrated automation of these three variable temperatures in different tropical and subtropical weather conditions through computer simulation for a typical commercial building. The results of integrated automation show savings in consumption between 5.03% and 19.68% compared to a fixed control, and between 3.22% and 8.21% compared to a weather-based control alone, showing that the integrated strategies are better than both models adopted as market benchmarks.