[New Paper] A qualitative assessment of integrated active cooling systems: A review with a focus on system flexibility and climate resilience

I assume that less than 5% of existing buildings worldwide are designed by architects and do not involve any notion of passive, bioclimatic, and or climate-responsive architectural design. We are surrounded everywhere by ugly blocks of buildings implemented by contractors and only designed for functionality and structural safety. Even safety is not guaranteed, as we witnessed during the earthquake in Syria and Türkiye. As a consequence, building occupants will face a huge comfort challenge with climate change during this century.

In this context, and under the IEA Annex 80 activities on Resilient Cooling in Buildings, a lead PhD research Essam Elnagar at ULiege prepared the paper entitled":  "𝐀 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬: 𝐀 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞" is paper now published online in "𝐑𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰𝐬" Journal (Impact Factor-16.799, Cite Score-28.5, SJR-Q-1). The paper provides a helpful review for architects, mechanical engineers and building professionals.

✅ According to the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), recurring heatwaves are becoming increasingly frequent. At the same time, buildings should be equipped with resilient cooling technologies to tackle the upcoming heat waves.

✅ This paper provides a qualitative assessment review to classify and assess integrated active cooling systems based on multi-assessment criteria.

✅ The assessment criteria discussed for each cooling technology are the energy performance of the system, the flexibility of the system to energy sources and secondary systems, climate resilience to heatwaves and power outages, and the last parameter is related to the building type and TRL. It has been almost one year since we started working on this article.

Highlights

• A qualitative multi-criteria assessment of the active cooling system is carried out.

• Criteria to assess the resilience of cooling systems against heatwaves and power outages are identified.

• Means to improve the resilience of cooling systems versus heatwaves and power outages are discussed.

• Split systems and chillers are highly resilient to heatwaves compared to other electricity-driven systems.

• Thermal energy-driven systems are more flexible to various energy sources and more resilient to power outages.

Abstract

Space cooling now has the fastest-growing energy end-use in buildings, with an almost tripled energy demand compared to 1990. This paper provides a state-of-the-art review of different integrated active cooling systems for buildings. The cooling systems are classified based on the energy source, with attention to the performance of the systems under multi-criteria assessment. The assessment criteria are described in five main parameters for energy performance, flexibility to energy sources and integration with secondary systems, climate resilience to heatwaves and power outages, as well as building typology, and technology readiness level. The qualitative assessment shows that electricity-driven systems are widely available in the market and have several applications integrated with PV systems. Therefore, they are more resilient to heat waves. Only chillers are highly integrated with secondary systems among electricity-driven systems. The study also found that only air-cooled and water-cooled chillers can operate in passive cooling mode. It is found that thermal energy-driven systems are more flexible to be driven by different energy sources, in addition to being more resistant to power outages due to their low electrical input. Finally, some recommendations for further research and practice are given based on the study's strengths and limitations.

✅ It has been almost one year since we started working on this article. I'm very thankful to the main author Essam Elnagar and the co-authors Alanis Zeoli Ramin Rahif, Shady Attia, and Vincent Lemort for their valuable contributions and constructive comments!

🔴  Citation: Elnagar, E., Zeoli, A., Rahif, R., Attia, S., & Lemort, V. (2023). A qualitative assessment of integrated active cooling systems: A review with a focus on system flexibility and climate resilience. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 175, 113179.

📣 Read and share the 📄 article. The paper is available in Open Access format: https://lnkd.in/eHuTqUEK

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