Design and Implementation of an Air-Conditioning System with Storage Tank for Load Shifting

The experience with the design, simulation and implementation of an air-conditioning system with chilled water storage tank is presented in this paper. The system is used to shift air-conditioning load of residential and commercial buildings from on-peak to off-peak period. Demand-side load management can thus be achieved if many buildings are equipped with such storage devices. In the design of this system, a lumped-parameter circuit model is first employed to simulate the heat transfer within the air-conditioned building such that the required capacity of the storage tank can be figured out. Then, a set of desirable parameters for the temperature controller of the system are determined using the Parameter plane method and the root locus method. The validity of the proposed mathematical model and design approach is verified by comparing the results obtained from field tests with those from the computer simulations. Cost-benefit analysis of the system is also discussed.