Carbon and Water Footprint of Energy Saving Options for the Air Conditioning of Electric Cabins at Industrial Sites

Maurizio Santin, Damiana Chinese, Onorio Saro, Alessandra De Angelis and Alberto Zugliano
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Maurizio Santin: Dipartimento Politecnico di Ingegneria e Architettura (DPIA), University of Udine, Via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine (UD), Italy
Damiana Chinese: Dipartimento Politecnico di Ingegneria e Architettura (DPIA), University of Udine, Via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine (UD), Italy
Onorio Saro: Dipartimento Politecnico di Ingegneria e Architettura (DPIA), University of Udine, Via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine (UD), Italy
Alessandra De Angelis: Dipartimento Politecnico di Ingegneria e Architettura (DPIA), University of Udine, Via delle Scienze 206, 33100 Udine (UD), Italy
Alberto Zugliano: Danieli & C. Officine Meccaniche S.p.A., Via Nazionale, 41, 33042 Buttrio (UD), Italy

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 19, 1-22

Abstract: Modern electric and electronic equipment in energy-intensive industries, including electric steelmaking plants, are often housed in outdoor cabins. In a similar manner as data centres, such installations must be air conditioned to remove excess heat and to avoid damage to electric components. Cooling systems generally display a water–energy nexus behaviour, mainly depending on associated heat dissipation systems. Hence, it is desirable to identify configurations achieving both water and energy savings for such installations. This paper compares two alternative energy-saving configurations for air conditioning electric cabins at steelmaking sites—that is, an absorption cooling based system exploiting industrial waste heat, and an airside free-cooling-based system—against the traditional configuration. All systems were combined with either dry coolers or cooling towers for heat dissipation. We calculated water and carbon footprint indicators, primary energy demand and economic indicators by building a TRNSYS simulation model of the systems and applying it to 16 worldwide ASHRAE climate zones. In nearly all conditions, waste-heat recovery-based solutions were found to outperform both the baseline and the proposed free-cooling solution regarding energy demand and carbon footprint. When cooling towers were used, free cooling was a better option in terms water footprint in cold climates.

Keywords: waste heat recovery; absorption cooling; water–energy nexus; steelworks; TRNSYS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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