Project description
The growing pace of climate change has led to significant efforts to increase the energy efficiency of heating- and electrical devices. However, the rising energy consumption of cooling has so far attracted little attention. In addition, the operation of cooling units with conventional refrigerants has a decisive impact on global warming.
Direct emissions from e. g. fluorinated refrigerants (such as HFC) contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect. This is caused, for example, by leaks in the cooling units which release the refrigerant into the atmosphere. Furthermore, the operation of cooling systems additionally causes indirect CO2 emissions due to their considerable energy consumption.
In addition, the demand for cooling applications itself is rising steadily as cooling becomes increasingly relevant for residential, office and industrial buildings as well as for industrial processes, even in temperate regions like Western and Central Europe.
To limit climate change, it is important that energy-efficient, sustainable cooling systems, containing very little or no pollutants for the climate, are widely adopted. Even though such solutions can already be found on the market today, there is a clear delay on the application of these systems. This can be traced back to a lack of knowledge about their advantages, real-life application results and guidelines on the correct selection, dimensioning and installing (combinations) of these systems.
The project SCoolS will tackle these problems through an interdisciplinary approach. The goal of SCools is to stimulate and promote the adoption of sustainable cooling systems in residential, office and industrial buildings as well as in industrial processes.
For this purpose, a stepwise approach is pursued. At first, the relevant cooling systems are identified and characterised in terms of different target parameters (e. g. energy consumption, comfort, applicability). These findings are supplemented by laboratory measurements. In this way, different cooling systems can be investigated in more detail. In addition, the influence of process conditions on the cooling demand in industrial processes is analysed. Subsequently a simulation environment for dimensioning sustainable cooling systems and for assessing their performance will be developed. The simulations are verified by data from real-world (in situ) measurements. The findings of simulation and the measurements are used to develop an easily accessible decision-support tool (evaluation matrix) for sustainable cooling systems. This will enable installers and users to perform robust evaluations of the performance, cost and energy efficiency of sustainable cooling systems for their cooling requirements and their respective conditions.
The project results are expected to lead to an increasing uptake of sustainable cooling systems for buildings and industrial processes, especially in SMEs. This will help to reduce the energy consumption of cooling across the target market sectors and beyond. The benefit especially for SMEs is the applied knowledge and the decision-support tool for sustainable cooling systems.
The complementary expertise of the project partners TM, WTCB, UBT and SKZ will allow the project consortium to generate added value due to the basic similarities between cooling of residential, office and industrial buildings and the interdependence of process and facility cooling. In addition, the partners are suited to make the knowledge and tools widely available to SMEs of the target group in Belgium and Germany.
The work planning and the different work packages are represented in the picture underneath.
Direct emissions from e. g. fluorinated refrigerants (such as HFC) contribute significantly to the greenhouse effect. This is caused, for example, by leaks in the cooling units which release the refrigerant into the atmosphere. Furthermore, the operation of cooling systems additionally causes indirect CO2 emissions due to their considerable energy consumption.
In addition, the demand for cooling applications itself is rising steadily as cooling becomes increasingly relevant for residential, office and industrial buildings as well as for industrial processes, even in temperate regions like Western and Central Europe.
To limit climate change, it is important that energy-efficient, sustainable cooling systems, containing very little or no pollutants for the climate, are widely adopted. Even though such solutions can already be found on the market today, there is a clear delay on the application of these systems. This can be traced back to a lack of knowledge about their advantages, real-life application results and guidelines on the correct selection, dimensioning and installing (combinations) of these systems.
The project SCoolS will tackle these problems through an interdisciplinary approach. The goal of SCools is to stimulate and promote the adoption of sustainable cooling systems in residential, office and industrial buildings as well as in industrial processes.
For this purpose, a stepwise approach is pursued. At first, the relevant cooling systems are identified and characterised in terms of different target parameters (e. g. energy consumption, comfort, applicability). These findings are supplemented by laboratory measurements. In this way, different cooling systems can be investigated in more detail. In addition, the influence of process conditions on the cooling demand in industrial processes is analysed. Subsequently a simulation environment for dimensioning sustainable cooling systems and for assessing their performance will be developed. The simulations are verified by data from real-world (in situ) measurements. The findings of simulation and the measurements are used to develop an easily accessible decision-support tool (evaluation matrix) for sustainable cooling systems. This will enable installers and users to perform robust evaluations of the performance, cost and energy efficiency of sustainable cooling systems for their cooling requirements and their respective conditions.
The project results are expected to lead to an increasing uptake of sustainable cooling systems for buildings and industrial processes, especially in SMEs. This will help to reduce the energy consumption of cooling across the target market sectors and beyond. The benefit especially for SMEs is the applied knowledge and the decision-support tool for sustainable cooling systems.
The complementary expertise of the project partners TM, WTCB, UBT and SKZ will allow the project consortium to generate added value due to the basic similarities between cooling of residential, office and industrial buildings and the interdependence of process and facility cooling. In addition, the partners are suited to make the knowledge and tools widely available to SMEs of the target group in Belgium and Germany.
The work planning and the different work packages are represented in the picture underneath.
This project is part of the Collective Research Networking (CORNET) program with funding from AiF (German Federation of Industrial Research Associations) AND VLAIO (Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship).
The project started 1/1/2019 and ends 1/3/2021.
The project started 1/1/2019 and ends 1/3/2021.