A new method of determination of indoor temperature and relative humidity with consideration of human thermal comfort

A new method is described in this article for selecting indoor temperature and indoor relative humidity to achieve minimum energy consumption for a required indoor thermal comfort level which is evaluated with indoor effective temperature. This method is derived from a central air-conditioning system and is based on our investigation that under a same indoor effective temperature, the system cooling load and the system energy consumption increase with an increase of indoor temperature. As such, energy consumption cannot be reduced with increasing indoor temperature for a given human thermal comfort level. In order to reduce energy consumption while keeping a same indoor thermal comfort level, indoor temperature and relative humidity may be determined with the proposed method described in this article. With the proposed method, a parameter variation study has also been conducted, which suggests that for a given indoor effective temperature, a combination of high indoor relative humidity and low indoor temperature be generally taken. The proposed method is based on the central air-conditioning system; yet it can be easily extended to other systems. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.