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EER, COP, and the second law efficiency for air conditioners

1978; American Institute of Physics; Volume: 46; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1119/1.11174

1943-2909

Harvey S. Leff, W.D. Teeters,

Building Energy and Comfort Optimization

It is pointed out that there is a close relationship between the energy efficiency ratio (EER) of an air conditioner unit and the coefficient of performance (COP) of its refrigeration cycle. This connection helps to bridge the gap between pure thermodynamics and practical energy-related problems. In this spirit, two other efficiency parameters, the total COP and total EER, measured relative to the energy extracted by a primary energy source (e.g., a fossil fuel), are defined. A comparison of the actual total COP (or total EER) relative to its maximum allowed value, consistent with the second law of thermodynamics, leads to an estimate for air conditioners of the recently proposed second law efficiency.