Energy Efficient Building Cooling by Combining a Regenerative Cooling System, a Large Tes and a Phase Change Material Cooling Ceiling
Abstract
The Würzburg division of the Bavarian Center for Applied Energy Research (ZAE Bayern) moved into its newly-built research building, the Energy Efficiency Center, upon its completion in 2013. It is a highly innovative building and was designed as a living lab. The cooling system is highly efficient, incorporating a combination of Passive Infrared Night Cooling (PINC), thermal energy storage (TES) and newly-developed ceiling cooling elements with integrated phase change materials (PCM). The PINC system can achieve high energy efficiency ratios (EER) of approx. 10-20. The PCM in the cooling ceiling provides passive cooling during the daytime in the transition period. Active cooling is only required in summer. In practice, the large- scale thermal energy storage tank has provided cooling for periods even up to ten weeks. This paper presents the first results of the combined system (PINC, TES, and cooling ceiling) as well as some of the measures undertaken to optimize it, and ideas for further improvement.
Keywords
Passive infrared night cooling (pinc), Phase change material (pcm), Cooling ceiling, High- level-controller, Thermal energy storage, Energy efficiency ratio, Monitoring