Performance analysis of heat pump assisted desiccant cooling system through experiment

Abstract

The building heat resistance performance and air tightness are more and more developed. According to this, especially in hot and humid climate, the latent load easily increases and occupant comfort decrease. Because of this the importance of dehumidification grow higher and higher. Heat pump assisted desiccant cooling (HPDC) system is one of the systems to control the indoor humidity while using less energy than conventional condensation dehumidification and general desiccant cooling system by using condensation heat as regeneration heat for desiccant. And the disadvantage of HPDC system, which is hard to control the temperature, is supported by using radiant ceiling panel (RCP) to control the room temperature. The object of the paper is analyzing the energy performance and thermal comfort satisfaction of HPDC system and analyze the adaptability of HPDC system combined with RCP (HPDC w/RCP) through experiments. In experiment 1, HPDC system used 55% lower energy consumption compared to packaged air conditioning system (PAC) and can satisfy comfort zone rather than PAC system, especially in humidity comfort range. In experiments 2, HPDC w/RCP system satisfied ASHRAE comfort zone 12% more than HPDC system and used 5% lower energy. The experiment performed in this study can prove that the HPDC system is a possible alternative system of conventional cooling and dehumidification systems and HPDC w/RCP also has possibility to enhance the thermal comfort and energy saving.