AIR CONDITIONING
Taking the strain through automated control
Using air conditioners to stay cool accounts for nearly 20% of the total electricity used in buildings around the world today. Martyn Ives, technical manager, Fujitsu General Air Conditioning UK examines how automated controls can significantly help optimise energy efficiency.
U
sing Air Conditioners to stay cool accounts for nearly 20% of the total electricity used in buildings around the world today, according to the Future of Cooling report by the International Energy Agency. A trend set to increase as the world’s hotter countries are predicted to see the most economic and demographic growth. Bringing benefits to human development, health, wellbeing and economic productivity, the increased demand will have a significant impact to each country’s energy demand, putting pressure on infrastructure whilst also increasing global emissions.
The report estimates that the use of energy for space cooling is growing faster than any other for end use in buildings. If left unchecked, this global market of approximately 1.6 billion operational air conditioning systems will triple in size by 2050, consuming over 6,000 terawatt hours (Twh), which is equivalent to China’s total power consumption today and providing approximately 11,675 gigawatts (GW) cooling capacity.
According to the report’s estimates using its baseline standard, a methodology taking into account the likely effects of current policies and targets, the peak demand of electricity in each individual country will be the leading challenge to solve. The share of electricity attributed to cooling is set to rise in some countries from 20% to 45%. Between 1990 and 2016, space cooling accounted for around 13% of overall growth in electricity demand making electricity the fastest growing form of final energy in the world. The energy efficiency of air conditioning units has risen over a number of years with incremental gains due to advances in technology. Commercial Variable Refrigerant Flow systems that are currently available show a wide range of available energy efficiency ratios; the best available being twice as efficient as the market averages; over three times
22 September 2020
more efficient than that of the lowest rating. Residential units show similar trends for EER and Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratios; up to a five times increase. System efficiencies are highlighted as a key opportunity in a move to create an alternative scenario to the reports base line model. A scenario that greatly reduces the requirement to build new generation capacity to meet peak demand. It also assists with the decarbonisation of power generation; reducing projected cooling-related CO2
emissions by just 150
million tonnes, 7% of the predicted baseline. Whilst small incremental technological gains are always a welcomed improvement, the Department of Energy & Climate Change highlight control as being the single highest recommendation for improvement. This recommendation stems from air conditioning inspection reports of systems installed in the UK, with clear evidence of how they were being operated, responsible for premises consuming double the kWh/m2 used for cooling in commercial space. (BRE Client Report for the Department of Energy & Climate Change, HPR218-1001 - June 2016)
Averaging 17.6% of annual consumption, July is the peak month for electricity that is used and attributed to air conditioning . During the period between May and October nearly 70% of annual consumption takes place. Through this six month period in London the difference between the highest and lowest ambient temperature can be up to 15oC, which can have a direct effect on system efficiency.
With air conditioning control highlighted as the main improvement point to reduce power consumption and with the energy efficiency of the product critical to the built environment managing the increasing cooling demand, technologies such as Intelligent Refrigerant Control have been developed to help offer an automated solution.
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