Commercial buildings refer to those engaged in commercial-scale activities, which are often related to the service sector. The retail stores and food service buildings are within this group of infrastructures. These establishments are vital to the economy of countries because they employ millions of workers. All the infrastructure that make up these buildings require a high amount of energy and also generate CO~2~ emissions, which vary according to the size of the buildings, technologies used for air-conditioning and refrigeration, lighting system technologies, number of workers and customers, and others. Around 20% of the global energy consumption came from residential and commercial buildings in 2018. According to the EIA, in 2012, U.S. commercial buildings used about 16% of electricity for refrigeration and 33% for the operation of HVAC systems. In 2016, the commercial sector represented 21.2% of the total Ecuadorian electricity consumption. Supermarkets are one of the most energy-intensive buildings from this sector, mainly due to the higher cooling needs and refrigeration loads. Both, the refrigerated cases and the air-conditioning equipment, exchange sensible and latent loads with the surroundings, which increases the temperatures of the store. It is well-known that the dehumidifiers contribute to reducing the levels of humidity of the air-conditioners, which could mean a significant reduction in energy consumption.

This study aims to model and evaluate the energy performance of a supermarket located in Guayaquil, Ecuador, by replacing three conventional air-conditioning units with other dehumidification strategies. For this purpose, we modeled the baseline of the supermarket using EnergyPlus software. Guayaquil has a predominantly warm-humid climate, which implies higher cooling and refrigeration needs. The building had two floors and a gross area of approximately 680 m^2^, where the net sales area represented about the 57% of it. Building construction materials were the typical materials that can be found in the analyzed climate zone, such as concrete blocks for the walls and metal roofs. All input parameters used in the simulations were provided by the supermarket staff. Air-conditioners and refrigerated cases were modeled using the default templates in EnergyPlus but replacing the specifications of the site systems. The weather data of the city was obtained from Meteonorm. The baseline model predicted within 10% of the energy consumption of the case study when compared to the real electricity bills of the building. Then, we incorporated a desiccant wheel for each of the air-conditioners that supply the frozen food area. All desiccant wheels’ technical specifications were based on the real information of commercial suppliers. Results showed relevant reductions in energy consumption and, in cooling and refrigeration loads by decreasing the humidity level from 80% to 55%. Furthermore, this model allowed to evaluate the influence of the environment on the energy consumption of the supermarket.


Dehumidification Strategies to Improve Energy Use at Retailers: A Case Study of a Supermarket Located in Guayaquil, Ecuador

Division / Sponsors: 
Aerospace, Bioengineering, Applied Mechanics, Design Engineering Division, Advanced Energy Systems, Manufacturing Engineering Division, Noise Control and Acoustics, Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prognosis (NDPD), Nuclear Engineering Division, Process Industries Division, Fluids Engineering, Heat Transfer, Materials, Microelectromechanical Systems, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis, Computers & Information in Engineering


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2020/volume/84478

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