• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.137-144
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• 2016

Commercial buildings account for a significant proportion of the total building energy use in Korea, and cooling energy, in turn, accounts for the largest proportion of total energy consumption in commercial buildings. Under this circumstance, chiller staging is considered to be a reasonable and practical solution for cooling energy saving. In this study, the part-load ratio and the operating characteristics of a vapor compression chiller were analysed within an office building. In addition, energy consumption among different chiller staging schemes was comparatively analysed. As a result, significant proportions of total operating hours, cooling load and energy consumption turned out to be in the part load ratio range from 0% through 50%, and thus energy consumption was significantly affected by the chiller COP at low part-load conditions, indicating that the chiller operation at the part-load is an important factor in commercial buildings. In addition, utilizing a sequential chiller staging scheme can reduce the annual cooling energy usage by more than 10.3% compared to operating a single chiller.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.27 no.11
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• pp.567-573
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• 2015

Commercial buildings account for significant portions of the total building energy in Korea, and thus, a variety of research on chiller operation has been carried out. However, most of the studies were carried out on the chiller itself, i.e., the part load ratio characteristics and the corresponding electricity energy consumption patterns were not analyzed in existing studies. In this study, the part load ratio and the operating characteristics of the vapor compression chiller were analyzed within an office building equipped with the conventional variable air volume system. As a result, significant portions of total operating hours, cooling load, and energy consumption turned out to be in the part load ratio range of 0 through 50%. Thus, energy consumption was significantly affected by the chiller COP at low part load conditions, indicating that chiller operation at the part load is an important factor in commercial buildings.