Research on the influence of air humidity on the annual heating or cooling energy consumption

Just taking 960 m(2) model building with improved envelope for example, this paper studies the influence of outside air humidity on the annual heating and cooling energy consumption and their relative variation rates (RVRs) and the discrepancy between temperature-humidity control (THC) and temperature control (TC) with the same increase of ventilation rates. The research shows that the discrepancy of annual heating and cooling RVRs is significant under different climatic conditions for the same building with the same increase of ventilation rates by the mode of THC. In general, the heating RVRs decline with the increase of average outside air humidity and the cooling RVRs rise with the increase of average outside air humidity. However, annual heating and cooling RVRs are both approximate in different cities under the climatic conditions of approximate annual average air humidity. The annual heating or cooling need by mode of THC is higher than or equal to the corresponding energy consumption by mode of TC and there exists a close relationship between the absolute increment of energy consumption and outside air humidity; furthermore, as the annual average air humidity increases, the absolute increment of annual cooling need increases while that of annual heating need decreases and both have good linear relation. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.