Cooling Systems for The Home Depot Smart Home
The goal of this project is to review possible options and to select a method of cooling the House. The House will be a roughly 4500 sq. ft., 2 story residence building designed to be environmentally friendly and technologically advanced. Though plans for the house have not been completed, the air conditioning system must planned for now. Due to the potentially unconventional nature of the cooling system, time must be allowed to design it into the house.
The process of selecting and installing the air conditioning system has been broken into three phases. Phase I consists of background research, comparison of systems, and the selection of a system for the house. Phase II will consist of the customizing and design optimization of the selected system to the House and Phase III is the construction of the chosen system. This report comprises Phase I: Selection.
This report compares the many options available for the cooling of the House. The criteria used for comparison are:
1. Cooling capacity
2. Environmental Sustainability Level
3. Reliability of Cooling Functionality
4. Installation Cost
5. Annual Cost
6. Maintenance Factor
7. Lifespan
8. Educational Value
The final sysem proposed by this report has two cooling mechanisms so that one system may compared against another and so that one system may be taken offline when desired.
The first system is a conventional high efficiency ground source heat pump manufactured by Trane.
The second system is a student built, solar powered, ammonia absorption system based on designs from SolarFrost.
The main advantage of this design is the incredible educational value offered in having students design and build an air conditioning system. Since the system is redundant, the house may also be assured of cool air when it is needed. The GSHP also supplies heat in the winter eliminating the need for a furnace, etc.
This system has the potential to be VERY energy efficient, especially if the solar AC is able to handle the load much of the cooling season. The extra solar hot water capacity needed for the solar ac system may be used for home heating in the winter.
The disadvantage of this system is the cost. Building one system is expensive, though necessary. Two is more expensive.
There are many things that remain to be evaluated as well as opportunities for further research into these systems. To name a few:
Design of upsized solar AC
Construction of solar AC
Integration of two cooling systems
Automatic optimization of dual system
Advanced controls based on weather forecasting
Integration of solar hot water panels and GSHP heating during the winter
The likelihood of the House using a GSHP is very high, though it remains to be seen if a GSHP versus a high efficiency air conditioner and high efficiency furnace is economically advantageous or not.
The educational/environmental value of building a solar air conditioning system needs to be evaluated against the cost in light of project goals. In the author's opinion, the solar ac is very much in line with the House's aims and should be a top priority.