Fifteen years of research in innovative HVAC plants at DTG

At the Department of Management and Engineering (DTG) of the University of Padova (Italy), the research team led by Prof. Renato Lazzarin, formed by the au-thors, worked during the first fifteen years of the millennium on different topics fo-cused on innovative HVAC technologies. Both experimental and theoreti-cal/modelling studies were carried on: condensing boilers performances were eval-uated in different climates; a liquid desiccant system for the air conditioning of one of the DTG buildings, operating both in winter and in summer mode, was designed, realized and tested; a self-regenerating liquid desiccant cooling system able to de-humidify, heating or cooling the ambient air by an electric heat pump was installed in a new building of the Vicenza hospital, and a data logging system was set up to monitor several parameters; a Gas Engine Heat Pump plant for the air conditioning of another building of the DTG was designed, realized and monitored for a long pe-riod; a multi-source heat pump system for a school building was modelled and dy-namically simulated, and then designed and monitored; hybrid water/phase change materials tanks were modelled, designed and tested for thermal energy storage; fi-nally, thermal and electric solar cooling plants were modelled and dynamically simulated for evaluating energy performance. The paper summarizes the main ideas and results of the research during the fifteen years period of work together.