New HVAC Sustainability Index—TWI (Total Water Impact)

Alexandre F. Santos, Pedro D. Gaspar and Heraldo J. L. de Souza
Additional contact information
Alexandre F. Santos: Department of Electromechanical Engineering, University of Beira Interior, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Pedro D. Gaspar: Department of Electromechanical Engineering, University of Beira Interior, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Heraldo J. L. de Souza: FAPRO—Faculdade Profissional, 80230-040 Curitiba, Brazil

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-11

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.

Keywords: HVAC; water-cooled condenser; air-cooled condenser; evaporative; TWI (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: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/7/1590/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/7/1590/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:7:p:1590-:d:339756

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().