Energy and Buildings 40 (2008) 16601665

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Energy and Buildings

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The study of energy-saving strategy for direct expansion air conditioning system
C.B. Chiou a,*, C.H. Chiou b, C.M. Chu a, S.L. Lin a
a b

Department of Automatic and Control Engineering, Chungchou Institute of Technology, Yuanlin, Changhua 510, Taiwan Department of Electrical Engineering, Mingchi University of Technology, Taishan, Taipei 243, Taiwan

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 18 September 2007 Accepted 15 February 2008 Keywords: Forced downtime Load shedding Energy saving Direct expansion system

Most air conditioning, energy-saving research has focused on the chiller system, the most effective energy-saving procedure of its kind would be the use of forced downtime or load shedding control methods. However, the use of forced downtime control methods on direct expansion systems, while saving energy, would be at the expense of increasing room temperature, leading to the discomfort of the inhabitants. This research focused on the direct expansion system and used periodic downtime control methods to execute energy-saving procedures, thus providing reasonable temperature control and saving energy at the same time. According to the results, by reducing the periodic downtime, we can improve unstable temperature problems; i.e. operating for 15 min and downtime for 5 min, provided the optimal energy-saving efciency, saving 21.66% of energy. However, the percentage of high room temperatures during this downtime period was 40.43%, this meant that if we wanted to save energy, we would have to sacrice comfort; if we wanted more comfort, then we have to select an operating mode that was secondary to operating for 10 min and downtime for 5 min. We also discovered that if the air conditioner manufacturer modied the embedded program and adjusted the limit for upper temperatures of the settings upward by 1 8C, users would save 7.22% of energy; this was a procedure that was more direct and effective than any other energy-saving requisition. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction In recent years, energy has been overused, resulting in a shortage of energy, meanwhile, due to greenhouse effects, world temperatures have steadily increased, therefore, requests for air conditioning systems are constantly growing. Table 1 records the monthly mean maximum temperature in Taiwan [1] and according to the survey, the period between May and October is the time when air conditioning is most often used, over 30% of total summer power usage is related to air conditioning [2], which causes stress to the power supply. Consequently, better control methods to achieve stable temperature control and energy-saving methods are a very important topic in this region. In order to suppress the summer power usage, Taiwan Power Company once conducted a research experiment, which used radio signals to directly control the power load of air conditioning equipment, and beginning from the summer of 2000, Taiwan

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 4 8311498x2016; fax: +886 4 8394076. E-mail address: ccbiau@so-net.net.tw (C.B. Chiou). 0378-7788/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2008.02.023

Power Company requested customers who had central air conditioning systems over 100 kW to join in this central air conditioning remote controlled program. Taipower would use radio paging systems to control the central air conditioning systems during the period between July and September; the units would operate for 45 min and then execute downtime for 15 min. Taipower annually asked more people to join, eventually, even the air conditioning systems of convenient stores were being controlled [3]. This was how they effectively controlled the unit power usage magnitude. The space for air conditioning is nonlinear and time variance, therefore, it is impossible to use linear methods to deal with this complicated problem. In fact, no matter how we look at air conditioning control problems, it is always a comfort versus energy conservation relationship. Most air conditioning energy-saving research has only focused on middle or large sized chiller systems, the units of control include the cooling tower [4], the compressor [5,6], and the fan coils [7,8], which shows the energy-saving effects range between 6% and 13%. In regard to the energy-saving control methods, the forced downtime methods has proven to be the most effective

C.B. Chiou et al. / Energy and Buildings 40 (2008) 16601665 Table 1 Monthly mean maximum temperature in Taiwan area (8C) [1] Station Taipei Taichung Kaohsiung January 18.9 22 23.4 February 19.3 22 24.1 March 21.9 24.6 26.5 April 25.9 27.8 28.8 May 28.8 30 30.4 June 31.9 31.8 31.5 July 34.1 33 32.1 August 33.5 32.4 31.5 September 31.2 31.9 31.2 October 27.8 30.1 29.7 November 23.9 26.9 27.2

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December 20.7 23.6 24.6

energy-saving procedure, this control method can also be used to regulate power usage during increased requests for electricity supply. However, the forced downtime control method is most useful when used on the central air conditioning systems; this is due to the residue chill water in the piping system, which makes room temperature raise very slowly, therefore, less discomfort is felt by the people inside. However, for those who use the direct expansion systems of RAC (room air conditioner) and PAC (package air conditioner) equipment, using forced downtime control methods to save energy, although effective, means room temperature will rise very rapidly, leading to great discomfort for the people inside. Our study focused on the direct expansion system, methods to adjust compressor downtime time, thus achieving optimal energysaving effects on reasonable temperature change perimeters. The international standard indices PMV (predicted mean vote) and PPD (predicted percent of dissatised) for air conditioning units, makes it difcult to dene and calculate settings using PMV and PPD parameters, which can satisfy both energy consumption and human comfort, due to the many variants involved. Comfort is hard to dene, this is why our research focused on the temperature changes during the downtime process, and used it as a data to understand what effects it had on the people. 2. Experimental system This experiment used two split type air conditioners, with a cooling capacity of 2064 kcal/h, as the air conditioning facilities. The experimental space distribution is shown in Fig. 1. The outdoor side was a closed type space, with its temperature kept at a constant dry-bulb temperature of 35 8C and a relative humidity of 60%. The dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures of the outdoor side were controlled by an air conditioning system, which could provide a cooling capacity up to 21.12 kW (6RT). For the indoor side, the means of Tair1 and Tair2 served as the controlling condition. Due to the uneven airow brought about by the indoor machine, namely, the space within 3 m in front of it, received the strongest airow inuence, thus, the measure points for Tair1 and Tair2 were those 3 m, with a 1 m height limit from the oor, respectively; Tair1 and Tair2 were 3 m apart from each other. The

thermal load on the indoor side was simulated by means of an electrical heater with a capacity of 625 W. As demonstrated in Fig. 2, there were eight measuring points in the experiment, including; temperature at condenser inlet (Tcin), temperature at condenser outlet (Tcout), temperature at evaporator inlet (Tein), temperature at evaporator outlet (Teout), air temperature at inlet of condenser (Tcain), air temperature at outlet of condenser (Tcaout), and temperature of air-conditioned room (Tair1, Tair2). All the thermocouples were calibrated within 0.2 8C. The power consumption of the test system was measured by means of an electric power meter with a range 03 kW, and 0.2% of full scale accuracy. The test apparatus was equipped with a programmable logic controller (PLC) linked to a personal computer, as shown in Fig. 3. The analog signals, including those from the TC and the electric power meter, were converted by an analog input module. The digital signals were sent to the host computer through a RS422/ RS232 interface for further operations. The data acquisition software was realized in a visual basic environment. 3. Results and discussion In Taiwan, the Taiwan Power Company suggested that air conditioning temperature should be set at 2628 8C [2], and that a proper indoor and outdoor temperature difference should be 3 5 8C. According to Chens [9] survey on the sense of comfort felt by indoor students, the temperature for a subjective sense of comfort, in an air conditioned environment, ranged between 24.8 and 26.8 8C and in a non-air-conditioned environment, was 27.0 27.9 8C. For this reason, this experiment set the air conditioning temperature at 27 8C. The purpose of this research was to understand the relationship between small sized air conditioning units and their compressor downtime cycles; and how different temperature settings will affect energy-saving levels, such as power usage, energy-saving efciency, and temperature curve changes, thus achieving optimal energy-saving effects within the perimeter of reasonable temperature changes. Fig. 4 displays the numerous temperature scatter points during the ON/OFF mode; when the compressors exit pressure measured

Fig. 1. Experiment space distributions.

Fig. 2. Map of temperature measuring points.

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Fig. 6. Temperature variation for operating 45 min and downtime 15 min (downtime cycle is 60 min).

Fig. 3. Composition of measurement system.

at 21.5 kgf/cm2, the relative saturate temperature was 55 8C, when the compressor entrance pressure was 7.39 kgf/cm2, and the relative saturate temperature was 12 8C. We can see from the gure, that when compressors exit temperature (Tcin) was approximately 70 8C, the entrance temperature (Teout) was approximately 18 8C. This meant that the compressors exit superheat would be approximately 15 8C, the entrances superheat would be approximately 6 8C, from Fig. 4, we also can see, that temperature points of the outdoor unit remained stable. Fig. 5 shows the temperature variation during the use of the ON/ OFF method, with a set temperature of 27 8C the controlled temperature range was 27 1 8C; this meant that the controlled upper temperature was 28 8C, and the lower temperature was 26 8C. The air conditioning room temperature uctuated within this range. From the energy-saving viewpoint, we prefer to use the simplest and effective energy-saving strategy, which is why we chose downtime control methods. The Taiwan Power Company advised that the downtime of a central air conditioning unit should occur every hour, for duration of 15 min, in order to decrease power usage. We chose to use different cycles that did not change the downtime time, which were; operating 45 min and downtime

15 min (60 min cycle); operating 22.5 min and downtime 7.5 min (30 min cycle); operating 15 min and downtime 5 min (20 min cycle). Based on these three cyclic control methods, this paper discusses energy-saving efciency and temperature change conditions. Fig. 6 shows the set temperature was 27 8C in a downtime cycle of 60 min, meaning the air conditioning system ran for 45 min, then downtime for 15 min every hour. We can see from the gure that during the forced downtime period of the direct expansion system, the temperature rose above 30 8C more quickly than anticipated, thus interfering with the comfort level and working efciency of the inhabitants. Fig. 7 shows the temperature variation when we maintained the downtime time set at 15 min, however, we lowered the downtime cycle to only 30 min, which meant the air conditioning system ran for 22.5 min with a downtime of 7.5 min. We can see that it was much more difcult for the temperature to rise above 30 8C, however, some high temperature groups remained. When we narrowed the cycle even further to 20 min, which meant the air conditioning system ran for 15 min and a downtime of 5 min; from Fig. 8 we can see that the temperature variation was even smaller, this was because the air conditioning systems in our research were two units of split type air conditioners. When the air conditioning system began downtime for 15 min in every hour, both air conditioners would mean a total downtime of 30 min. Fig. 9 shows an air conditioner, which did not include downtime controls, and therefore, only attempted to compensate for the changes during the 30 min of downtime in the other unit. From the gure, we can see that a single air conditioner cannot efciently deal with the heat load within a space, making the temperature change magnitude larger. In order to understand whether small cycles and longer downtime times would result in more energy-saving effects and comfortable temperatures, we minimized the cycle to only 15 min, which meant the operating time was 10 min and downtime was 5 min. In every hour, the total downtime time was only 20 min; Fig. 10 illustrates the temperature variation. From the gure, we can see that the temperature variation was even smaller.

Fig. 4. Temperature distribution of measuring points with ON/OFF control (mode 1).

Fig. 5. Temperature variation with ON/OFF control (mode 1).

Fig. 7. Temperature variation for operating 22.5 min and downtime 7.5 min (downtime cycle is 30 min).

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where wt represents the operating instantaneous power, t1 and t2 are the operating start and nish times. (c) w (W): average operating power R t2 t1 wt dt w (2) R t2 t1 f dt When the compressor is operating, f = 1; when the compressor stops, f = 0 (d) a: power load ratio
Fig. 8. Temperature variation for operating 15 min and downtime 5 min (downtime cycle is 20 min).

w wf

(3)

where wf is the refrigeration capacity. (e) h: energy-saving efciency P ON=OFF P

h 1

(4)

Fig. 9. One air conditioner does not conduct downtime control, another operating 30 min and downtime 30 min (downtime cycle is 60 min).

Fig. 10. Temperature variation for operating 10 min and downtime 5 min (downtime cycle is 15 min).

In order to understand the energy-saving efciency of different downtime controls we dened the following parameters for evaluation: (a) kWh/4 h: electricity consumption for a 4 h operating period (W): average power consumption (b) P Z t2 1 P wt dt (1) t2 t1 t1

ON=OFF represents the average power consumption when where P the compressor operated in mode 1. The higher h is, the more energy saving it is. Table 2 lists the different operating parameters in the different modes of downtime, from this table, we can see that when we used mode 1 as the comparison standard; that mode 2 operated for 45 min and downtime for 15 min, would yield an energy-saving efciency of 18.68%, this meant that we saved 18.68% energy by using forced downtime control. However, from Fig. 6 we can see that the room temperature obviously uctuated, resulting in high temperatures of over 30 8C. From this table we can understand that in mode 4, running 15 min and downtime for 5 min, the energysaving efciency was the highest, 21.66%. From Fig. 8, we can see smaller temperature changes. In mode 6, the downtime of 20 min/ h was longer than in mode 4, where the downtime time per hour was 15 min, but because it was restarted so often, making the operating time shorter, meant that the air conditioning system did not have enough time to cool the air down, therefore, the room temperature rose immediately after shutdown, making the compressor constantly operate under high thermal loads with less power saving efciency. Along with the energy-saving considerations, we also had to think that in terms of the comfort of the inhabitants, therefore, Fig. 11 denes the time ratio of a high room temperature, during a controlled period: ST1 % ST2 % T1 100% T T2 100% T T3 100% T (5) (6)

ST3 %

(7)

Table 2 Parameters comparison of operating mode Mode (set temperature 27 8C) Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: ULT = ST + 1 8C (ON/OFF, no forced downtime) Operating 45 min/downtime 15 min (downtime cycle 60 min) Operating 22.5 min/downtime 7.5 min (downtime cycle 30 min) Operating 15 min/downtime 5 min (downtime cycle 20 min) Only one operating 30/downtime 30 min (downtime cycle 60 min) Operating 45 min/downtime 15 min (downtime cycle 15 min) ULT = ST + 2 8C (ON/OFF, no forced downtime) ULT = ST + 3 8C (ON/OFF, no forced downtime) kWh/4 h (kW) 4.71 3.83 3.96 3.69 4.18 3.74 4.37 4.13 (W) P 1176.82 958.15 991.29 923.82 1046.91 936.07 1093.45 1032.79 w (W) 1365.53 1408.36 1439.43 1458.71 1135.27 1385.80 1444.56 1458.07 a 0.72 0.59 0.61 0.56 0.64 0.57 0.67 0.63 h (%) 18.68 15.92 21.66 11.25 20.66 7.22 12.31

ULT: upper limit temperature; ST: set temperature.

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Table 3 Time ratio of high room temperature for operating mode Mode (set temperature 27 8C) Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode Mode 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: ULT = ST + 1 8C (ON/OFF, no forced downtime) Operating 45 min/downtime 15 min (downtime cycle 60 min) Operating 22.5 min/downtime 7.5 min (downtime cycle 30 min) Operating 15 min/downtime 5 min (downtime cycle 20 min) Only one operating 30/downtime 30 min (downtime cycle 60 min) Operating 45 min/downtime 15 min (downtime cycle 15 min) ULT = ST + 2 8C (ON/OFF, no forced downtime) ULT = ST + 3 8C (ON/OFF, no forced downtime) ST+1% 0.00 42.61 40.72 40.43 53.70 27.83 17.46 40.28 ST+2% 0.00 26.16 16.88 14.71 35.72 3.48 0.00 9.98 ST+3% 0.00 15.94 2.17 1.16 15.93 0.00 0.00 0.00

ULT: upper limit temperature; ST: set temperature.

mode 7 had the lowest ST+1% (17.46%), this meant that with no downtime control, but simply modifying the upper limit temperature of the internal control program of the air conditioner by 1 8C higher, we were able to save 7.22% energy; this procedure proved more direct and efcient than any other strategy and it can be done without additional control of other equipment. 4. Conclusion The purpose of this research was to use small size air conditioning units and methods of cyclic downtime control to understand the benets of energy-saving procedures. In the same heat loading environment, we discovered and compared the following energy-saving effects of different durations of downtime, such as electricity consumption, energy-saving efciency, and temperature curve variations, etc. According to the results, forced downtime was the most effective energy-saving procedure, however, the temperature uctuation was too obvious. We eased this effect by shortening the cycle, when we use the mode of operating for 15 min and downtime for 5 min, the best energysaving efciency was achieved, which produced 21.66% of energysaving effects, however, the time ratio (ST+1%) of room temperature was higher than the air conditioning set temperature of 1 8C, and was 40.43%, therefore, if we plan to treat personnel comfort as the rst priority, we must choose the second best energy-saving downtime cycle, which was operating for 10 min and downtime for 5 min. When the controllers upper limit temperature was increased by 1 8C higher than the original upper limit temperature, the energy-saving effect was 7.22%, this meant that the air conditioner manufacturer did not have to constantly pursue temperature stability by maintaining the temperature within the range of 1 8C of the set temperature. Manufacturers should begin considering adjustments to increase the upper limit temperature setting, thereby allowing consumers to unconsciously save energy, since most people are usually not sensitive enough to feel or sense minor temperature uctuations. Energy is a limited resource, therefore, an individual saving of 1% energy, should be taken seriously, because these seemingly minor savings, when seen as a global total, become an enormous total savings. References
[1] Central weather Bureau, Taiwan, http://www.cwb.gov.tw/V5e/index.htm, 2007. [2] Taiwan Power Company, http://www.taipower.com.tw/, 2007. [3] Report of workshop of National Science Council, Taiwan (R.O.C.), Studies on Direct Control of Split Type Air Conditioners in Convenient Stores, NSC90-2213-E-027024, 2002. [4] J.E. Braun, S.A. Klein, J.W. Mitcell, W.A. Beckman, Applications of optimal control to chilled water systems without storage, ASHRAE Transactions 95 (1) (1989) 663675. [5] C. Apera, R. Mastrullo, Fuzzy control of the compressor speed in refrigeration plant, International Journal of Refrigeration 27 (2004) 639648.

Fig. 11. The relationship between cycle time (T) and high room temperature time (T1T3).

where T was the cycling time, T1T3 represented the time when temperatures were higher than the air conditionings set temperature of 13 8C, respectively. From Table 3, we know that in mode 2, where the operating time was 45 min and downtime time was 15 min, the relative ST+3% was an amazing 15.94%, this meant that the inhabitants were in conditions above 30 8C for one sixth of the total time; yet in mode 4, where the operating time was 15 min and downtime time was 5 min, we see that the ST+3% was approximately 1.16%, this meant that by narrowing the downtime cycle, we obtained better energy savings and comfort results. We also compared what would happen during a time when the set temperature (27 8C) and lower limit temperature (26 8C) were the same, but upper limit temperatures were increased by different amounts; Fig. 12 shows the temperature scatter conditions when the upper limit temperature (ULT) equalled the set temperature (ST = 27 8C), by plus 1 8C (ULT = 28 8C), plus 2 8C (ULT = 29 8C), and plus 3 8C (ULT = 30 8C); we see from Table 2, when there was no forced downtime, the energy-saving efciency of mode 8 rose to 12.31%, and the ST+2% ratio was only at 9.98%. An important note here is that of all the experiments,

Fig. 12. Temperature variation for different upper limit temperature (ST = 27 8C).

C.B. Chiou et al. / Energy and Buildings 40 (2008) 16601665 [6] S.A. Tassou, T.Q. Qureshi, Comparative performance evaluation of positive displacement compressors in variable-speed refrigeration applications, International Journal of Refrigeration 21 (1) (1998) 2941. [7] C. Wu, X. Xingxi, E. Shiming, Development of control method and dynamic model for multi-evaporator air conditioners (MEAC), Energy Conversion & Management 46 (2005) 451465.

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[8] R. Thompson, A. Dexter, A fuzzy decision-making approach to temperature control in air-conditioning systems, Control Engineering Practice 13 (2005) 689698. [9] M.-H. Chen, The Study of Thermal Comfort and Energy Saving in the Classrooms, Master Thesis, Chaoyang University of Technology, Taiwan, 2004