The Role of Power Consumption and Type of Air Conditioner in Direct and Indirect Water Consumption

Abstract

Freshwater resources are very limited and because of the power plants, the water consumption in industry is even more than municipal. The cooling systems is a very important part of water consumption and in the past studies, it has been neglected. The analysis of cooling systems shows that, evaporative air conditioners will consume high rate of water directly and that for a house with area of 140 m2 is about 40 m3/month, that is about 10% of the total annual water use in typical households in an arid climate. The high power usage in compression air conditioner will also consume high water withdrawal indirectly and up to 102 m3/month in once-through cooling system. The results of the research show that the evaporated water in evaporative air conditioners is from the municipal network and since it is being evaporated, the impact is much higher than the urban water consumption that can be collected by wastewater systems. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the previous methods to achieve the goals of sustainable development.

Keywords

• Water and energy
• Sustainable development
• Air conditioner
• Indirect water consumption
• Power plant.