Impact of district heat source on primary energy savings of a desiccant-enhanced evaporative cooling system

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the primary energy savings of a desiccant-enhanced evaporative (DEVap) cooling system with a district heat source. The DEVap system consists of an internally cooled liquid desiccant dehumidifier and dew point evaporative cooler connected in series. The liquid desiccant unit requires a heat source for regenerating the weak desiccant solution, which means that the DEVap cooler is a thermally driven cooling system. It can provide energy benefits when the supplied heat comes from waste heat or renewable heat sources. In this research, district heat obtained from a combined heat and power (CHP) system was used as the heat source for the DEVap system. The primary energy consumption and CO2 emission rate of the proposed system with a district heat source were estimated using a detailed energy simulation and compared with those powered by a conventional gas boiler. The results showed that the DEVap system with district heat source consumed 46.2% less primary energy and produced 40.5% less CO2 compared with the system using the conventional gas boiler.