How to Cover Additional Cooling Load Needs During COVID-19 Pandemic?

Abstract

It has been crystal clear to everyone that the fresh air supply is one of the highest priorities to keep people under safe indoor conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. In many buildings, either there are no mechanical ventilation systems or the air conditioning systems do not have adequate capacity to meet the additional cooling loads for the increased fresh air requirement. Providing fresh air without disturbing the thermal conditions in the building requires a substantially increased cooling load and operating costs. On the other hand, there may not be adequate power infrastructure to meet this additional energy demand item in many regions. In this technical brief paper, we aim to emphasize the importance of heat storage systems and provide a quick solution to illustrate that they can meet the fresh air demands without requiring additional chiller or chiller capacity. In addition, it is observed that heat storage systems can be a convenient solution to meet the urgent and additional cooling loads in a more sustainable way.