Energy and Cost Performance of a Cooling Plant System with Indirect Seawater Utilization for Air-Conditioning in a Commercial Building

Abstract

This paper presents energy and cost performance of a cooling plant system with indirect seawater utilization for air-conditioning in a commercial building. The energy and cost performance is verified by direct measurement and a model-based simulation analysis. In the simulation, the indirect seawater utilization system is compared with a cooling tower system, an air source heat pump chiller system and a direct seawater utilization system. The electric energy consumption of the indirect seawater utilization system is almost the same as the other systems except the air source heat pump chiller system, because using lower seawater temperature can make the efficiency of the refrigerating machine higher, but this system also needs electric energy for cooling seawater/freshwater pumps. However, the indirect seawater utilization system can largely reduce demand charge compared with the cooling tower system, and cut down initial and maintenance costs compared with the direct seawater utilization system. Using these results, the effectiveness of the indirect seawater utilization system toward environmental conservation, energy and cost reduction is clarified in this paper. © 2003, Architectural Institute of Japan. All rights reserved.