Exergo-enviro-economic analyses of solar energy based novel air cooling system

Abstract

Implementation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units in buildings for space cooling represents a passive method for achieving thermal comfort and reducing power consumption. This paper introduces solar energy assisted in-direct evaporative cooling system with a novel multi-passage dry channel. The main objectives are to evaluate exergy variations, sustainability, and total cooling cost based on the inlet conditions for four modes: A, B, C, D (without evaporative cooling, with evaporative cooling, preheating, and preheating with humidification). This comparative study explores thermal performance enhancement of an indirect evaporative cooling system across four operational modes. Mainly, the exergy outlet values increase significantly by 77.39%, while exergy destruction decreases by 54.86%. Both energetic and exergetic coefficient of performances witness remarkable enhancements, with energetic Coefficient of Performance (COP) rising by 321.32%. Exergy efficiency experiences a notable enhancement of 29.974%, and sustainability index shows a consistent upward trend, with a 119.34% increase observed in Mode D compared from Mode A. Entropy generation decreases significantly, indicating improved system efficiency. Total capital cost per unit of cooling capacity decreases notably, highlighting cost savings. These findings underscore the effectiveness of incorporating preheating and humidification processes in optimizing indirect evaporative cooling system performance, emphasizing both exergy efficiency and cost-effectiveness.