Performance analysis of thermal storage assisted cooling tower with night cooling

Abstract

As global warming and water scarcity issues continue to grow, it is essential to increase resources efficiency for air conditioners and power plants. In order to increase the efficiency, the systems need to be modified to take the advantages of the low night temperature and thermal storage tanks. In this study, the low night temperature and thermal storage tanks effects on the cooling tower is studied using TRNSYS. Using a chiller operating from 8:00 to 16:00 as a case study, hot water from the condenser is partially stored on daytime and cooled slowly during the night. The storage tank volume is optimized by considering two big tanks and five small tanks. The results show that night cooling reduces cooling water temperature by 5.8 degrees C or 21.8% while the cooling efficiency is increased by 36%. The thermal storage tanks enable to have the low continuous flow rate and help to reduce the fan power by 67.1%. On the storage side, compared to two tanks system, the tanks volume is reduced by 16.5% when 5 tanks are used. In theory this reduction can go up to 50% by increasing the number of tanks and reducing their individual size.