Energetic optimization of the chilled water systems operation at hotels

Abstract

The hotel exploitation, while continuing to satisfy the customers, needs to decrease the requests of electric power as the principal energy carrier. Solving issues regarding the occupation of a hotel integrally, taking the air conditioning as center of attention, which demands the bigger consumptions of electricity, results in a complex task. To solve this issue, a procedure was implemented to optimize the operation of the water-chilled systems. The procedure integrates an energy model with a strategy of low occupation following energetic criteria based on combinatorial-evolutionary criteria. To classify the information, the formulation of the tasks and the synthesis of the solutions, a methodology of analysis and synthesis of engineering is used. The energetic model considers the variability of the local climatology and the occupation of the selected rooms, and includes: the thermal model of the building obtained by means of artificial neural networks, the hydraulic model and the model of the compression work. These elements allow to find the variable of decision occupation, performing intermediate calculations to obtain the velocity of rotation in the centrifugal pump and the output temperature of the cooler water, minimizing the requirements of electric power in the water-chilled systems. To evaluate the states of the system, a combinatorial optimization is used through the following methods: simple exhaustive, stepped exhaustive or genetic algorithm depending on the quantity of variants of occupation. All calculation tasks and algorithms of the procedure were automated through a computer application.