The economic feasibility of the choice of an air conditioning system for a shopping and office centre

Abstract

Introduction. An air conditioning system is the costliest engineering system in shopping and office centres. Buildings of this type have internal heat gains throughout the year. These heat gains are substantial because of the large number of people, the high level of artificial lighting, the availability of various items of equipment, and the heat gain from solar radiation. An air conditioning system known as ventilation cooling is of interest. It is not new; its energy assessment is quite high. The same system is under consideration, but it is evaluated from the economic perspective in the Moscow prices of 2021. Materials and methods. The problem is solved by applying a computational method to the case of a 35-storey office building in Moscow. Different values of the outdoor air temperature are studied to implement transition to ventilation cooling. Alternative options for the installation of dry coolers are compared, since they affect the length of routing of cooling circuits. Costs are calculated for all options under consideration. Results. Some results are presented as figures showing the costs of alternative air cooling systems. Conclusions. It is found that the location of dry coolers greatly affects the cost of pumping units. When comparing options 1 a, 1 b, and 1 с with the option that implies the installation of dry coolers on the building roof, the authors found that option 1 c is economically profitable at the 10 % discount. If options 2 a, 2 b, 2 c, are compared for the case when dry coolers are installed beside the building, option 2 c, that implies the transition from ventilation cooling to machine cooling at tn = 8 °C, is more economically profitable than option 2 b, when the transition occurs at tn = 5 °C, and option 2 a when the transition is triggered at tn = 0 °C.