IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v13y2020i7p1590-d339756.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

New HVAC Sustainability Index—TWI (Total Water Impact)

Author

Listed:
  • Alexandre F. Santos

    (Department of Electromechanical Engineering, University of Beira Interior, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
    FAPRO—Faculdade Profissional, 80230-040 Curitiba, Brazil
    C-MAST—Centre for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal)

  • Pedro D. Gaspar

    (Department of Electromechanical Engineering, University of Beira Interior, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
    C-MAST—Centre for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal)

  • Heraldo J. L. de Souza

    (FAPRO—Faculdade Profissional, 80230-040 Curitiba, Brazil)

Abstract

Sales of air conditioning are growing rapidly in buildings, more than tripling between 1990 and 2016. This energy use for air conditioning comes from a combination of rising temperatures, rising population and economic growth. Energy demand for climate control will triple by 2050, consuming more energy than that currently consumed altogether by the United States, the European Union and Japan. This increase in energy will directly impact water consumption, either to directly cool a condenser of an equipment or to serve indirectly as a basis for energy sources such as hydroelectric power that feed these heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Knowing the unique and growing importance of water, a new index, Total Water Impact (TWI) is presented, which allows a holistic comparison of the impact of water use on water, air and evaporative condensation climate systems. 200 and 500 TON (tons of refrigeration) air-cooled and water-cooled systems are theoretically compared to evaluate the general water consumption level. The TWI index is higher in the smallest water condensing system. That is, holistically, water consumption is higher in the water condensing system than in the air condensing system. Thus, this index provides a new insight about energy consumption and ultimately, about sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexandre F. Santos & Pedro D. Gaspar & Heraldo J. L. de Souza, 2020. "New HVAC Sustainability Index—TWI (Total Water Impact)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-11, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:7:p:1590-:d:339756
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/7/1590/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/7/1590/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Alexandre F. Santos & Pedro D. Gaspar & Heraldo J. L. de Souza, 2021. "Refrigeration of COVID-19 Vaccines: Ideal Storage Characteristics, Energy Efficiency and Environmental Impacts of Various Vaccine Options," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-11, March.
    2. Melendres, Clark N. & Lee, Ji Yong & Kim, Bongkyun & Nayga, Rodolfo M., 2022. "Increasing yield and farm income of upland farmers: The case of Panay Island Upland Sustainable Rural Development Project in the Philippines," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Nguyet Anh Dang & Rubianca Benavidez & Stephanie Anne Tomscha & Ho Nguyen & Dung Duc Tran & Diep Thi Hong Nguyen & Ho Huu Loc & Bethanna Marie Jackson, 2021. "Ecosystem Service Modelling to Support Nature-Based Flood Water Management in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-28, December.

    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:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:7:p:1590-:d:339756. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.