Building and Environment 181 (2020) 107101 Available online 21 July 2020 0360-1323/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Performance study of a novel dew point evaporative cooler in the climate of central Europe using building simulation tools Demis Pandelidis a, * , El _ zbieta Niemierka b , Anna Pacak a , Piotr Jadwiszczak b , Aleksandra Cicho� n a , Paweł Drąg c , William Worek d , Sabri Cetin e a Department of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 27 Wyspia� nski St., 50-370, Wroclaw, Poland b Department of Environmental Engineering, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 27 Wyspia� nski St., 50-370, Wroclaw, Poland c Department of Control Systems and Mechatronics, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 27 Wyspia� nski St., 50-370, Wroclaw, Poland d Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S Cass Ave, Lemont, IL, 60439, USA e Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Building simulation Mathematical modeling Air conditioning Energy-saving Dew point cooler ABSTRACT This paper presents the performance research of a hybrid air conditioning system (System II) equipped with novel dew point evaporative cooler (DPIEC) for a retail building located in temperate climatic conditions. The new cooler has a dedicated, adaptable structure that maximizes its performance in the climate conditions of central Europe. The unit can operate as a typical regenerative air cooler when outdoor air is drier than indoor air, it can operate as a counter-fow heat recovery unit when indoor conditions are more dry than outdoor and it can operate as a combination of both arrangements. The year-round, hourly-stepped building energy simulations were carried-out using a prognostic tool of energy consumption. The novel dew point evaporative cooler application potential was established using the black-box model based on regression equations was established based on experimental tests on a prototype of novel DPIEC. The hybrid system operation was compared to the typical air handling unit equipped with a standard energy wheel for heat recovery (System I). Presented research shows that DPIEC can cover about 95% of total cooling loads while the energy wheel covers only 9% of total cooling load. System II allows us to save 65% of seasonal electricity consumption comparing to System I. It comes from the fact that during most of the cooling season DPIEC is in operation and it covers most of the cooling loads without the need to switch the chilled water system. 1. Introduction Retail buildings, especially big-box objects with large shopping area consume signifcant amount of energy for air-conditioning (AC) [1,2]. Supermarkets, hypermarkets, grocery stores and discount stores are one of the most energy intensive objects [3]. There is a need for drastic reduction in energy consumption of large retail objects in European Union (EU) [4]. In accordance with data presented in Ref. [5] the ex- istence of big-box retail stores on the market strongly depends on their ability to decrease their operational costs of their cooling systems. The report states that reduction of AC operational costs is necessary for smaller shops, such as discounts as well. In both cases the costs of AC are one of the ingredients affecting the product fnal price. Due to that, reducing the building energy demand allus ows to increase the owners possibilities to compete with prices offered by other companies [1]. With the continuous increase in demand for cooling energy, the prices of products available for sale must increase. The development of alterna- tive cooling solutions or improving the effciency of current technologies may re energy consumption. Simulation software can be used to make predictions about the temporary and annual effectiveness of air condi- tioning systems. In recent years the dew point evaporative cooling has been consid- ered as a low energy consumption process. That is why it is considered in many studies by evaluating its perform edifferenterent climatic condi- tions, building types, system arrangements and system optimization. Riangvilaikul and Kumar [6] performed an experiment which specifed the performance of a dew point evaporative cooler under different inlet airfow parameters. It was found that analyzed wet-bulb obtains wet bulb effectiveness between 92 and 114% while dew point effectiveness varied between 58 and 84%. Jradi and Riffat [7] used Matlab computer software to numerically model the energy core with cross-fow * Corresponding author. E-mail address: demis.pandelidis@pwr.edu.pl (D. Pandelidis). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Building and Environment journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/buildenv https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107101 Received 16 April 2020; Received in revised form 6 June 2020; Accepted 25 June 2020