ARE 346N Building Environmental Systems Due April 23, 2019

Homework Assignment 4
Total 100 pts total

1. Electricity Pricing and saving from Water Storage System (40 pts total)

We learned in the first part of the course that chilled water storage can shift energy use to non-peak
period. The following diagram shows the electric energy consumption of a chiller over the course
of a typical summer day. The solid curved line indicates building cooling demand. The solid
straight line indicates chiller capacity (maximum cooling power). The chiller maximum cooling
power is 3400 kW (see arrow in the diagram). The periods between 0 and 7 and 19 and 24 are
periods when chiller stores energy in the cooling water storage. The shaded gray portions between
0 and 7 and 19 and 24 represent the stored energy. In period from 7 to 19, the water cooled by
chiller and the stored chilled water are used to satisfy pack of the cooling load (area above the
straight line). The sum of shaded areas below line 3400 kW is equal to shaded area above. This is a
common strategy called “peak shaving.”

The purpose of this problem is to calculate the energy saving associated with the system, so that
the building owner can decide if it is appropriate to invest in the chilled water storage tank.

Major assumption: COP for chiller is 4 and it is constant during the day. Assume that month has 30
days.
Calculate the daily electricity costs associated with the system for three different scenarios:
a) (6 points) Assuming no chilled water storage system (i.e. the chiller does not run extra
overnight and needs to run more during the day). Use the Austin - Energy Commercial - Large
Primary - Summer rates.
b) (4 points) Assuming a chilled water storage system. Use the Austin - Energy Commercial -
Large Primary - Summer rates.
c) (3 points) Assuming a chilled water system. Use the Austin - Energy Commercial - Large
Primary Summer rates with the optional time-of-use rate, neglecting holidays and assuming that
every day is a week day.
d) (2 points) What are the savings associated with the chilled water storage system? Would you
recommend the optional time of use rate?
In all calculations, ignore power factor issues and fuel adjustment clauses. Also, assign 1/30th of
the demand charges to your calculations (i.e. assume exactly the same chiller use every day
including weekends). This problem will be much easier if you do it using a spreadsheet.

Make sure every quantity has units associated with it and that it is easy to follow your
calculations.

2. Sizing a residential system (60 pts total)

a) (10 points)
Using the procedure defined in NEC article 220-30, design the electrical system for a house in
Austin (3 wire single phase 120/240 V). The goal of this assignment is for you to learn about the
calculation procedure as well as to gather some of the required data. You can use default values
from Table 13.2 (Tao and Janis), however for at least 4 appliances from the list below you
shod find power requirement by yourself. You must document (with photocopies of
manufacturers’ literature or information from manufacturers’ web sites) the selected power
requirement. The house is a 2000 ft2 two story house in Austin with 4 tons (1 ton=12000 Btu/h) of
air conditioning (two units – 2.5 tons and 1.5 tons). It uses two gas furnaces for heating. The air
handler fans consume 900 W each. The house has the following electrical loads:
• electric dryer
• washing machine
• 50 gallon electric water heater
• garage door opener
• approx. 25 cu ft. refrigerator
• dishwasher
• electric oven (w/ natural gas stovetop)
For lighting assume 3W/ft2 + 15 × 60W for outdoor fixtures.
Duplex outlets at 120 V: Assume 20/floor (1.5 A for each duplex) + required appliance circuits in
kitchen and laundry room.
Size the electrical system and select the standard panel size. Show all of your calculations.

The grading will be based on doing the calculation correctly, including documentation for four
items. The overall layout of the problem and how easy it is for the grader to follow will also be
graded.

b) (5 points)
Using Tables 12-2 and Table 12-3, answer the following questions:
- How many conductors you need for the 3 wire single phase system to power the panel above?
- Size the conductors. Use the copper wire with standard insulation (rated for 75°C) in a conduit.
Assume that neutral conductor is equal to the phase conductor. Conduit is exposed to ambient
temperature which is below 30°C.
- What size of conduit do you need?
- If you use aluminum conductors, do you need larger or smaller conductors? Why?
- If the ambient temperature is 37°C (instead30), what is the needed size of the copper conductors?