2011-9

Energy implications for water supply tanks in high-rise buildings

Brief:

High-rise housing, a trend in densely populated cities around the world, increases energy use for water supply and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents an energy efficiency evaluation measure for water supply system designs and a mathematical model for optimizing pumping energy through the arrangement of water tanks in a building. To illustrate that the model is useful for establishing optimal design solutions that integrate energy consumption into urban water planning processes which cater to various building demands and usage patterns, measurement data of high-rise residential buildings in Hong Kong are employed. The results show the energy efficiency of many existing high-rise water supply systems is about 0.25 and can be improved up to over 0.3 via water storage tank relocations, corresponding to annual electricity saving up to 0.3% of the total annual electricity consumption in Hong Kong.

Further information:

Cheung CT, Mui, KW, Wong LT, 2012. Energy implications for water supply tanks in high-rise buildings, The 38th CIBW062 International Symposium of Water Supply and Drainage for Buildings, 27-30 August, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. pp.329-341.