Levantamento e diagnóstico de sistemas de refrigeração ambiental e propostas de melhoria de eficiência energética para edifícios do campus central da UFRN

Abstract

Over the last few years, UFRN has been receiving new air conditioning installations to offer thermal comfort to users. 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 system has been installed. 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 technological innovations of environmental climatization, having the high energy efficiency, thanks to its characteristics and possibility of remote management, offering the best operational control of the machines interconnected to the network interface. The main characteristic is the high energy efficiency, because 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, 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 the 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.