The Study of Thermostat Impact on Energy Consumption in a Residential Building by Using TRNSYS

Abstract

The present study investigates the effectiveness of thermostat control strategy in cooling energy consumption in residential buildings. To evaluate the energy consumption, two scenarios including a residential zone with and without the thermostat control system are assumed. The TRNSYS software provides an efficient numerical tool to model and evaluate a cooling system. Furthermore, since solar-powered cooling systems for residential air-conditioning are receiving growing and significant interest, a hot-water fired absorption chiller coupled with evacuated tube collectors is considered as the cooling system. The results reveal that the cooling systems consume a large amount of energy in hot climate zones without employing the thermostatic control. Therefore, cooling energy has great potential for a significant saving in hot climates. It is illustrated that the thermostat strategy has an obvious impact on such energy saving. In the current study, employing the thermostat in 90m2 residential building results in saving energy by up to 36%.