Study on the Optimum Design Method of Heat Source Systems with Heat Storage Using a Genetic Algorithm

Recently, a heat source system utilizing a heat storage tank for energy savings in buildings was designed. A heat storage tank is an effective system for solving the qualitative and quantitative differences in the required building energy. On the other hand, the existing design process of a heat storage system is difficult to determine if the air-conditioning time is unclear, and the design in a real-working level is too inaccurate, causing oversizing and a high initial investment cost. This results in inefficient operation despite the introduction of an efficient system. Therefore, this study proposes an optimal design method of a heat source system using a thermal storage tank. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed design method, feasibility studies were conducted with the existing system designs. As a result, the optimal solution could reduce the initial cost by approximately 25.6% when following the conventional design process and it was approximately 40% lower than the real-working method. In conclusion, the conventional designs are inefficiently over-designed and the optimal design solution is superior. In this regard, the suggested optimal design method is efficient when designing a heat source system using a thermal storage tank.