[Equest-users] Energy Recovery

[Simge Andolsun]

Dear eQuest users,

In my models, I realized that using energy recovery in the cooling season
always gives higher cooling energy consumption results than turning off the
energy recovery and using economizer only instead. I tried using OA
Heat/Cool with Bypass OA or Bypass Exhaust thinking that such configuration
would capture the best benefit of energy recovery and let the
outside/exhaust air bypass when economizer is more beneficial. Then, I read
in the eQuest manuals that this configuration still lets the energy
recovery run when it is not beneficial in warm months and just opens up the
economizer dampers to compensate for the unnecessary heating of the outside
air. So, the loss caused by the energy recovery eats up the benefit that is
provided with the economizer.

Thus, I thought, may be, I should use two separate files to maximize the
benefit from both the economizer and the energy recovery. The first file
would be for heating (with OA Heating) where the energy recovery would be
on whenever it can heat the outside air. Then the second file would be for
cooling where there would be no energy recovery but the economizer would
be available whenever the outside air is favorable for cooling. Finally, I
would get heating energy consumption from the heating file and the cooling
energy consumption from the cooling file.

The only thing that stops me from following this approach is that I am
wondering whether there was a logical reason why bypass configurations of
eQuest give higher cooling energy consumption than the economizer only
case. Shouldn't they be giving exactly the same cooling energy consumption?
Is it because part of the outside/exhaust air is being bypassed in the
bypass configurations instead of fully? or may it be because it is known
that setting the energy recovery and economizer for the best benefit is
pretty hard in reality and that's why it was assumed that it would not
function ideally? Or, is there a completely different reason that I do not
know?

Would you please help me with this question?
I'd appreciate it very much.

Thanks,
Best Regards,
S. Andolsun, PhD
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