IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v83y2006i6p628-648.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Improved condenser design and condenser-fan operation for air-cooled chillers

Author

Listed:
  • Yu, F.W.
  • Chan, K.T.

Abstract

Air-cooled chillers traditionally operate under head pressure control via staging constant-speed condenser fans. This causes a significant drop in their coefficient of performance (COP) at part load or low outdoor temperatures. This paper describes how the COP of these chillers can be improved by a new condenser design, using evaporative pre-coolers and variable-speed fans. A thermodynamic model for an air-cooled screw-chiller was developed, within which the condenser component considers empirical equations showing the effectiveness of an evaporative pre-cooler in lowering the outdoor temperature in the heat-rejection process. The condenser component also contains an algorithm to determine the number and speed of the condenser fans staged at any given set point of condensing temperature. It is found that the chiller's COP can be maximized by adjusting the set point based on any given chiller load and wet-bulb temperature of the outdoor air. A 5.6-113.4% increase in chiller COP can be achieved from the new condenser design and condenser fan operation. This provides important insights into how to develop more energy-efficient air-cooled chillers.

Suggested Citation

  • Yu, F.W. & Chan, K.T., 2006. "Improved condenser design and condenser-fan operation for air-cooled chillers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(6), pages 628-648, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:83:y:2006:i:6:p:628-648
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306-2619(05)00070-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chan, K. T. & Yu, F. W., 2002. "Applying condensing-temperature control in air-cooled reciprocating water chillers for energy efficiency," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 72(3-4), pages 565-581, July.
    2. Yu, F.W. & Chan, K.T., 2005. "Experimental determination of the energy efficiency of an air-cooled chiller under part load conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 30(10), pages 1747-1758.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Piacentino, Antonio & Cardona, Ennio, 2010. "Scope Oriented Thermoeconomic analysis of energy systems. Part II: Formation Structure of Optimality for robust design," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 957-970, March.
    2. Yang, L.J. & Wang, M.H. & Du, X.Z. & Yang, Y.P., 2012. "Trapezoidal array of air-cooled condensers to restrain the adverse impacts of ambient winds in a power plant," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 402-413.
    3. Catrini, Pietro & La Villetta, M. & Kumar, Dhirendran Munith & Morale, Massimo & Piacentino, Antonio, 2024. "Analysis of the operation of air-cooled chillers with variable-speed fans for advanced energy-saving-oriented control strategies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    4. Harby, K. & Gebaly, Doaa R. & Koura, Nader S. & Hassan, Mohamed S., 2016. "Performance improvement of vapor compression cooling systems using evaporative condenser: An overview," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 347-360.
    5. Yu, F.W. & Chan, K.T., 2007. "Modelling of a condenser-fan control for an air-cooled centrifugal chiller," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(11), pages 1117-1135, November.
    6. Chang, Chun-Cheng & Shieh, Shyan-Shu & Jang, Shi-Shang & Wu, Chan-Wei & Tsou, Ying, 2015. "Energy conservation improvement and ON–OFF switch times reduction for an existing VFD-fan-based cooling tower," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 491-499.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Serafín Alonso & Antonio Morán & Miguel Ángel Prada & Perfecto Reguera & Juan José Fuertes & Manuel Domínguez, 2019. "A Data-Driven Approach for Enhancing the Efficiency in Chiller Plants: A Hospital Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-28, March.
    2. Deymi-Dashtebayaz, Mahdi & Kheir Abadi, Majid & Asadi, Mostafa & Khutornaya, Julia & Sergienko, Olga, 2024. "Investigation of a new solar-wind energy-based heat pump dryer for food waste drying based on different weather conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 290(C).
    3. Catrini, Pietro & La Villetta, M. & Kumar, Dhirendran Munith & Morale, Massimo & Piacentino, Antonio, 2024. "Analysis of the operation of air-cooled chillers with variable-speed fans for advanced energy-saving-oriented control strategies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 367(C).
    4. Chan, Wai Mun & Leong, Yik Teeng & Foo, Ji Jinn & Chew, Irene Mei Leng, 2017. "Synthesis of energy efficient chilled and cooling water network by integrating waste heat recovery refrigeration system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 1555-1568.
    5. Zhuang, Chaoqun & Wang, Shengwei & Shan, Kui, 2020. "A risk-based robust optimal chiller sequencing control strategy for energy-efficient operation considering measurement uncertainties," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    6. Lee, W.L. & Lee, S.H., 2007. "Developing a simplified model for evaluating chiller-system configurations," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 290-306, March.
    7. Davoodi, Vajihe & Kazemiani-Najafabadi, Parisa & Amiri Rad, Ehsan, 2022. "Presenting a power and cascade cooling cycle driven using solar energy and natural gas," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 802-813.
    8. DeForest, Nicholas & Mendes, Gonçalo & Stadler, Michael & Feng, Wei & Lai, Judy & Marnay, Chris, 2014. "Optimal deployment of thermal energy storage under diverse economic and climate conditions," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 488-496.
    9. Ma, Zhenjun & Wang, Shengwei, 2009. "Building energy research in Hong Kong: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(8), pages 1870-1883, October.
    10. Izquierdo, M. & Moreno-Rodríguez, A. & González-Gil, A. & García-Hernando, N., 2011. "Air conditioning in the region of Madrid, Spain: An approach to electricity consumption, economics and CO2 emissions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 1630-1639.
    11. Chan, K.T. & Yu, F.W., 2006. "Thermodynamic-behaviour model for air-cooled screw chillers with a variable set-point condensing temperature," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 265-279, March.
    12. Kusiak, Andrew & Tang, Fan & Xu, Guanglin, 2011. "Multi-objective optimization of HVAC system with an evolutionary computation algorithm," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 2440-2449.
    13. Deymi-Dashtebayaz, Mahdi & Davoodi, Vajihe & Khutornaya, Julia & Sergienko, Olga, 2023. "Parametric analysis and multi-objective optimization of a heat pump dryer based on working conditions and using different refrigerants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 284(C).
    14. Yu, F.W. & Chan, K.T., 2010. "Simulation and electricity savings estimation of air-cooled centrifugal chiller system with mist pre-cooling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(4), pages 1198-1206, April.
    15. Wang, Enhua & Yu, Zhibin, 2016. "A numerical analysis of a composition-adjustable Kalina cycle power plant for power generation from low-temperature geothermal sources," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 834-848.
    16. Kheir Abadi, Majid & Davoodi, Vajihe & Deymi-Dashtebayaz, Mahdi & Ebrahimi-Moghadam, Amir, 2023. "Determining the best scenario for providing electrical, cooling, and hot water consuming of a building with utilizing a novel wind/solar-based hybrid system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    17. Yang, Tingting & Wang, Wei & Zeng, Deliang & Liu, Jizhen & Cui, Can, 2017. "Closed-loop optimization control on fan speed of air-cooled steam condenser units for energy saving and rapid load regulation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 394-404.
    18. Ma, Zhenjun & Wang, Shengwei, 2011. "Enhancing the performance of large primary-secondary chilled water systems by using bypass check valve," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 268-276.
    19. Yu, F.W. & Chan, K.T., 2005. "Experimental determination of the energy efficiency of an air-cooled chiller under part load conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 30(10), pages 1747-1758.
    20. Wang, Shengwei & Cui, Jingtan, 2005. "Sensor-fault detection, diagnosis and estimation for centrifugal chiller systems using principal-component analysis method," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 197-213, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:83:y:2006:i:6:p:628-648. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.