Performance Analysis of an Integrated Solar Dehumidification System with HVAC in A Typical Corner Store in the USA

Abstract

Food deserts have emerged in underserved urban and rural areas throughout the United States. Corner markets have filled the food voids, but generally without offering residents access to healthy food. The economics for doing so are prohibitive. The purpose of the study is to investigate an opportunity for reducing corner store energy costs in order to make possible retail of fresh produce and meat. Given the typical dominance of refrigeration to the energy cost in such stores, an integrated solar dehumidification system with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is considered. A typical corner store baseline reliant upon conventional refrigeration and HVAC equipment is defined to serve as a basis for comparison. MATLAB Simulink dynamic models are developed for the posed system and baseline model. The results show energy reduction in the refrigerated cabinets of maximally 28%, 27%, and 20%, respectively, in Dayton, OH, Phoenix, AZ, and Pine Bluff, AR. The respective HVAC energy savings are respectively 28%, 56%, and 4%. Collectively these correspond to total annual energy savings of 43%, 51%, and 53%, translating to annual energy cost savings of greater than $12K in all locations.

Technology to Address Food Deserts: Low Energy Corner Store Groceries with Integrated Agriculture Greenhouse

“…Combined heat and power is a reliable source of energy wherein heat and power can be generated simultaneously. In this study, the base case model developed in a previous study [33], which represents a typical corner store energy in term of geometry and energy characteristics, is considered. A CHP system and agriculture greenhouse are applied to this model.…”

“…This present study builds on this previous work by considering two additional systems in a corner market model [33]: namely, a CHP and a connecting agriculture greenhouse. The CHP linkage to Sustainability 2020, 12, 7565 6 of 22 the greenhouse is obvious.…”

“…Previous research has been presented by the authors that looked at the economic benefits of utilizing a solar dehumidification system with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) in a typical corner store [33]. The proposed system was designed to help corner stores reduce operating costs in order to affordably provide access to healthy food.…”

“…The predicted energy intensity for the corner store reflect the benchmark energy intensities reported in [34,35] Table 1. Geometrical and energy characteristics for baseline typical corner store model [33].…”

“…Base Case (Parameters) Dynamic hourly simulation results from the typical corner store defined in [33] are reported using typical weather data for Dayton, OH, for a representative heating-dominant climate with 5708 heating degree days and 886 cooling degree days. It is clear from Figure 2 that during the winter season, i.e., from January to March, the power demand is higher due to the low ambient temperature.…”