Energy performance of independent air dehumidification systems with energy recovery measures

Independent air dehumidification provides an attractive alternative to traditional coupled air dehumidification with reduced energy use, better humidity control and indoor air quality. According to this concept, latent load is treated by an independent system and the sensible load is treated by chilled-ceiling panels. In this work, four independent air dehumidification systems with energy recovery strategies are proposed. They are as follows: system 1, mechanical dehumidification with heat pump; system 2, mechanical dehumidification with sensible heat exchanger; system 3, mechanical dehumidification with membrane-based total heat exchanger; and system 4: a heat pump incorporating an active desiccant wheel and evaporative cooler. They are compared with a mechanical dehumidification system with no heat recovery. Hour-by-hour energy analysis is performed on the systems proposed. The results show that the system of mechanical dehumidification with membrane total heat recovery (system 3) consumes the least primary energy. However, since, the systems employ energy recovery measures, the energy savings for the four systems are in the same order, around 4.40×10⁶ kJ per person.