Design and experimental study of a novel air conditioning system using evaporative condenser at a subway station in Beijing, China

Air conditioning system (AC) contributes significantly to the energy consumption of underground metros. In China, most metro stations are designed with water-cooling centralized air conditioning (WC-AC) system, it has been found that several serious problems are brought by this conventional system, such as large space occupying, water leaking, cooling tower noise and low system efficiency. In order to solve these problems, a novel energy-efficient AC system incorporating an independent evaporative condenser (EC) has been proposed and installed at Futong metro station in Beijing, China. A series of pilot measurements were conducted to analyze the cooling performance and energy consumption of this novel EC-AC system. During the testing period, the average refrigeration efficiency of COP, SCOP and ACOP in A and B side is up to 3.8/3.9, 3.4/3.4 and 2.5/2.3. At the same time, some operation problems such as unbalanced working condition have been identified during measurement. The research indicates that such EC-AC system could be a feasible solution to enhance the energy efficiency and reduce the operational costs and carbon emission in metro stations.