Young-hak Song

Experimental Study of Cooling Energy Saving Verification Using Blinds and Phase Change Material(PCM)

This study looks into changing building energy use by application of phase change material (PCM). PCM does not need extra energy for operation and is used for reducing building energy use and, CO2 output by displaying semi-permanent effects after installation. It also is able to avoid the maximum electric power time-zone by inducing a time lag phenomenon of cooling and heating loads with high thermal capacity using latent heat. To verify the efficiency of blinds and PCM, tests about the PCM operation mechanism using air conditioning machinery and nocturnal panel cooling were done. In the test results of the case using PCM installation, a blind angle with machinery air conditioning and nocturnal panel cooling at the same time shows a 22 percent energy saving effect against general space. The test results of each case were compared and analyzed based on the blind and window opening settings. Finally, the energy reduction of existing buildings using PCM application was reviewed based on the final measurement results.

Comparison Evaluations of VRF and RTU Systems Performance on Flexible Research Platform

The energy performance of a variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system was evaluated using an occupancy-emulated research building in the southeastern region of the United States. Full- and part-load performance of the VRF system in heating and cooling seasons was compared with a conventional rooftop unit (RTU) variable-air-volume system with electric resistance heating. During both the heating and cooling seasons, full- and part-load conditions (i.e., 100%, 75%, and 50% thermal loads) were maintained alternately for 2 to 3 days each, and the energy use, thermal conditions, and coefficient of performance (COP) for the RTU and VRF system were measured. During the cooling season, the VRF system had an average COP of 4.2, 3.9, and 3.7 compared with 3.1, 3.0, and 2.5 for the RTU system under 100%, 75%, and 50% load conditions and resulted in estimated energy savings of 30%, 37%, and 47%, respectively. During the heating season, the VRF system had an average COP ranging from 1.2 to 2.0, substantially higher than the COPs of the RTU system, and resulted in estimated energy savings of 51%, 47%, and 27% under the three load conditions, respectively.

A Study of Optimal Energy Consumption Measures for Building Façades with a Parametric Combination of Blinds, Lighting and HVAC Systems

Abstract This paper investigates the indoor light environment, lighting energy consumption and total energy including annual HVAC system in temperate and temperate monsoon climate zones. In certain areas, annual temperature variation is very extreme therefore a high thermal insulating performance for glazing systems is required to minimize the effects of outdoor temperature changes on the indoor temperature. To obtain a variable solar heat gain coefficient value for annual energy performance, single and double skin façade systems were examined for this study and 18 cases considering blind type, ventilation and installing places were set to compare the effectiveness of each. Lighting energy consumption was also investigated using dimming control, high efficient lamp, and blind control throughout an entire year. With the calculation results from the target building as a baseline, we performed the calculation 992 times with a combination of energy saving measures, and total primary energy of lighting and HVAC ranging from 282kWh/m2 year to 372kWh/m2 year.

The Effectiveness of New Power Generation and Energy Demand Reduction to Achieve Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals in Building Area

Since the massive power outages that hit across the nation in September 2011, a growing imbalance between energy supply and demand has led to a severe backup power shortage. To overcome the energy crisis which is annually repeated, a policy change for deriving energy supply from renewable energy sources and a demand reduction strategy has become essential. Buildings account for 18% of total energy consumption and have great potential for energy efficiency improvements; it is an area considered to be a highly effective target for reducing energy demand by improving buildings’ energy efficiency. In this regard, retrofitting buildings to promoting environmental conservation and energy reduction through the reuse of existing buildings can be very effective and essential for reducing maintenance costs and increasing economic output through energy savings. In this study, we compared the energy reduction efficiency of national power energy consumption by unit production volume based on thermal power generation, renewable energy power generation, and initial and operating costs for a building retrofit. The unit production was found to be 13,181GWh/trillion won for bituminous coal-fired power generation, and 5,395GWh/trillion won for LNG power generation, implying that LNG power generation seemed to be disadvantageous in terms of unit production compared to bituminous coal-fired power generation, which was attributable to a difference in unit production price. The unit production from green retrofitting increased to 38,121GWh/trillion won due to the reduced energy consumption and benefits of greenhouse gas reduction costs. Renewable energy producing no greenhouse gas emissions during power generation and showed the highest unit production of 75,638GWh/trillion won, about 5.74 times more effective than bituminous coal-fired power generation.

A Study on Winter Season Measurement Results to cope with Dynamic Pricing for the VRF System

The dynamic pricing of electricity, where the electricity rate increases in a time zone with a high demand for electricity is typically applied to a building whose power reception capacity is greater than a certain size. This includes the time of use(TOU) electricity pricing in Korea which can induce the effect of reducing the power demand of a building. Meanwhile, a VRF (Variable Refrigerant Flow) system that uses electricity is regarded as one of the typical heating and cooling systems along with central air conditioning (central HVAC) for its easy operation and application to the building. Thus, to reduce power energy and operating costs of a building in which the TOU and VRF systems are applied simultaneously, we suggested a control for changing the indoor temperature setting within the thermal comfort range or limiting the rotational speed of an inverter compressor. In this study, to describe the features of the above-mentioned control and verify its effects, we evaluated the results obtained from the analysis of its operation data. Through the actual measurements in winter operations for 73 days since mid- December 2014, we confirmed a reduction of 10.9% in power energy consumption and 12.2% in operating costs by the new control. Also, a reduction of 13.3% in power energy consumption was identified through a regression analysis.