Energy Consumption Analysis Comparing Two Types of Air Conditioning Systems in Smart Farm

Abstract

This paper aims to compare the energy consumption of two types of air conditioning systems in the plant factory. In plant factories, to make plants grow better, the indoor environment required by plants must be controlled by the air conditioning system. In this study, an air conditioning system using heat pump-driven liquid desiccant (HPLD) was selected. The HPLD system can save energy by heat pump and liquid desiccant. The variable air volume (VAV) system was considered as a comparison system which is a conventional air conditioning system in the plant factory. The thermal loads of plant factory in Seoul, South Korea, was calculated by TRNSYS18 software. Using the load from TRNSYS18, the energy consumption in dehumidification season was estimated by the Engineering Equation Solver. The simulation results showed that because the HPLD system can independently control the temperature and humidity, the HPLD system can save 76% energy consumption compared to the reference system during the dehumidification processes. © 2020 16th Conference of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate: Creative and Smart Solutions for Better Built Environments, Indoor Air 2020. All rights reserved.