Survey and Diagnosis of Environmental Refrigeration Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvement Proposals for Buildings of the UFRN Central Campus
Energy efficiency, Economic viability, Technological innovations, VRF system.
Over the last few years, the UFRN has been receiving new air conditioning installations, to offer thermal comfort to those who use these environments and also to increase productivity. On the other hand, it was observed the considerable increase in the consumption of electric energy in the Central Campus, being necessary to take measures related to the rational use of these equipments.
Since 2013, in some buildings of this university, the VRF (Variable Refrigerant Flow) system has been installed in some buildings. This system guarantees, in addition to the lower electricity consumption, better thermal comfort when compared to other air conditioning technologies, even though it is more expensive to implement.
The VRF system is one of the greatest technological innovations for environmental conditioning, having the high energy efficiency, thanks to its characteristics and possibility of remote management, offering the best operational control of the machines connected to the network interface.
The main characteristic of the VRF system is the high energy efficiency, since the system has multiple controllers, in order to guarantee the smooth operation of the machines and better distribution of the thermal load, thus avoiding perceptible temperature fluctuations within an environment.
This study proposes to verify, from electrical measurements and analysis of investments and indexes related to energy quality, the feasibility of adopting the VRF in the Central Campus of this university, being part of the technological innovation process related to air conditioning due to the new solutions that the system proposes to the users of these installations, related to the comfort and, mainly, the energy efficiency.