Instant District Cooling System

The IDCS project aims to study the performance of an air-handling unit (AHU) performing cooling and dehumidification for large buildings (office buildings, commercial buildings, industrial buildings) by means of evaporative cooling method. The IDCS AHU uses a heat source as a primary energy input for the regeneration process of the dehumidification in the evaporative cooling cycle. Evaporative cooling systems have low electricity usage compared to conventional cooling systems. Solar collectors are typically used as a heat source for this type of evaporative cooling unit (Solar Cooling). In this project, the solar collector of the IDCS AHU is replaced by a direct connection to a district heating network. In cold winter-dominated countries like Denmark, the cooling demand is high and the heating demand is at its minimum (restricted to mostly domestic hot water production) during the summer season. Heat is thus considered a less valuable source of energy compared to electricity that can be employed in a number of strategic applications such as transportations or appliances. Therefore, the IDCS system presents a key advantage by diverting the cooling load from the electrical grid onto heat sources such as district heating and solar collectors that are cheaper and largely under-used during the summer season.