TA-23-C037 – Modeling and Simulation of Dedicated Outdoor Air System (DOAS) with a Passive Desiccant Wheel: A Case Study using EnergyPlus PDF

It is acknowledged that a properly designed Dedicated Outdoor Air System (DOAS) can achieve high energy efficiency while providing sufficient ventilation and dehumidification for indoor air quality. Particularly, equipping passive desiccant wheels within the system has become a potent way of further enhancing DOAS’s overall energy performance. This paper aims to develop a whole building energy performance model (i.e., EnergyPlus model) with the capability of simulating the operational characteristics of a passive desiccant wheel in a DOAS unit. For this paper, a primary school model that consists of a DOAS with water source heat pumps (WSHP) under the weather condition of New York City, NY was developed. To demonstrate the effectiveness of adding the desiccant wheel in terms of energy performance, the target system was compared to a baseline system without a passive desiccant. As a result, by reducing the cooling and heating loads that DOAS had to handle, approximately 14.4% of the energy-saving potential was obtained, primarily from the DOAS cooling and heating coils.