Challenge of Using Groundwater for Buildings Air Conditioning in Subtropical Areas

Chih-Ping Kuo and Hung-Jiun Liao
Additional contact information
Chih-Ping Kuo: Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Informatics, Minghsin University of Science and Technology, Hsinchu 30401, Taiwan
Hung-Jiun Liao: Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-21

Abstract: Using circulating groundwater to cool air-conditioning is not new in high latitude regions but difficult in subtropical areas. Different from only using fans to remove the heat from indoor air for drier air in the high latitude region, the latent heat inside the humid air in subtropical areas makes the operation more difficult. Latent heat inside the humid air must remove away by air-conditioning including compressor and fan for cooling indoor air, which means more electrical power is required for the operation. To save total electrical power for the air-conditioning system is the main goal of this study. To use the advantage of groundwater with lower temperature to lower down the work of compressor, this research compared two ways, close/open types of water/groundwater circulation, both using groundwater to remove the heat generated by a 15RT (45 kW) air-conditioning. Full-scale tests and simulations were performed in this study to evaluate the efficiency of transferring the heat produced by air-conditioning systems to stably flowing groundwater in a grave stratum under Taipei Basin. With a closed circulating cooling water system, this study found that a 15RT air conditioner could only operate continuously for 4 h before it had to be shut down due to overheating. Additionally, groundwater must carry the heat away within the following 20 h. In changing the closed circulating water system to an open one, a system that uses a circulatory method to extract groundwater upwards and conduct heat exchange with an air conditioning system can enable the continuous operation of such a system with the same heat production condition. Numerical simulations for the heat dissipation behavior of two circulatory systems were performed herein. The results verified the aforementioned phenomena observed from both tests. The result showed both systems can provide air-conditioning working well. The total electrical power for a 15RT air-conditioning in sub-tropical areas can be reduced by 22% using circulating groundwater. Considering the system optimization, the total power consumption can be reduced by about 28%.

Keywords: groundwater; air conditioning system; heat island effect; energy conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/1/364/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/1/364/ (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:jsusta:v:14:y:2021:i:1:p:364-:d:714210

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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