1.

Introduction

With the development of the population in Cambodia, many people start to find an easy
way to make their life feel comfortable with the surrounding atmosphere and fresh air. Coffee
shops, houses, supermarkets, or other buildings are places where air conditioners take action to
help people working effectively. In 2019 Cambodia Air Conditioner demand was more than 140
Thousand Units in the year. There is an increasing energy demand for space air-conditioning.
Currently, 30% of total power consumption in summer is due to air conditioning[1]. More than
this, there is a big potential for solar (either PV or thermal) cooling systems to use the sun when it
is available to produce cooling when the need is highest. This, in return, will help to reduce peak
loads on the electricity production. One system is in particular of interest: the air conditioner. It
consists of a conventional vapor compression cycle where the refrigerant is superheated by heat to
aid the compressor to reduce work and thus reduce the power consumption[2].

Besides, with the increase of AC in Cambodia, the trend of coffee drinking has become
popular, according to the change of social structure of Cambodian people’s lifestyle. Therefore,
there are so many traditional coffee shops are closing, and instead of modern coffee shops. In a
study in 2018 have found that almost of respondents are aging between 17 – 25 years consisted of
response 114 (63.3%), were 54 of the respondent in the between 25-30 years (30.0%), and 9 of the
respondents have found that between 30-35 years (5.0%) the last only 3 of the respondents have
between more than 35 years (1.7%) from total target population 180 respondents[3].

In general, the air conditioner is a device that lowers the air temperature. The cooling is
mostly done using a simple refrigeration cycle, but sometimes the evaporation is used, commonly
for the comfort of cooling in -buildings and motor vehicles. In construction, a complete system of
heating, ventilation, and air conditioning is referred to as HVAC[4]. Air conditioning can also be
provided by the simple process called free cooling which uses pumps to circulate a coolant from a
cold source, which in turn acts as a heat sink for the energy that is removed from the cooled space.
The free cooling systems can have very high efficiencies and are sometimes combined with
seasonal thermal energy storage so that the cold of winter can be used for summer air
conditioning[5].
 In addition, coffee products and similar drinking are in high demand among young and
citizens, including expatriates who work and stay in Phnom Penh, giving rise to the increasing
needs for attractive and comfortable coffee shop setting where trendy consumers can enjoy talking
with families, and friends for coffee food & beverage. In that study also found, 123 respondents
drank one cup of coffee per day (68.3%), only 33 people answered were the respondents all of
them (did not or None coffee) (18.3%), and 20 people were answered drinker two cups of per day
(11.1%), also have only 3 people of them, drinker, three cups of coffee per day (1.7%), only 1
people would like to drink more 3 cups of coffee per day (.6%). That is the reason why coffee
shops increase so fast in 2018[5].

Moreover, to provide comfortable air for occupants in buildings, most of them are equipped
with air-conditioning (AC) systems. Normally in AC systems, the moisture removal of air is
achieved by bringing the temperature below the dew point in the cooling coil. Considerable
external energy is then consumed to reheat the off-coil air before entering into the conditioned
space. The energy demand for AC systems has shown rapid growth in a developing country[6].
Based on the statistics, the total energy sale of Malaysia has been increased from 73,102 GWh in
2005 to 83,411 GWh in 2009. Also, usually AC systems account for more than 50% of the energy
bills. Therefore, the application of new energy-saving technology seems to be essential for
decreasing the energy consumption levels of AC systems [7].

Finally, the first part of the project is composed of developing the efficiency of the air-
conditioning system and trying to understand the system working principle using both the
measurements and theory. The second step is to design and construct new sketching of an air
conditioner system with improved performance. This research will focus on the first step and will
consist of performance measurements of an existing air conditioner as well as designing a
simplified model of the system in software[8].

1.1. Background

An air conditioner is a system that is used to cool down space by removing heat from the space
and moving it to some outside area. The cool air can then be moved throughout a building through
ventilation. Air conditioners require some input of work to operate, otherwise, entropy would
decrease naturally which is forbidden by the second law of thermodynamics. Air conditioners act
similarly to a heat pump but instead follow a cooling cycle. To cool the air, a substance known as
a refrigerant is processed step by step. The air conditioner is a key component of the HVAC
system, which focuses on home temperature control to maximize comfort and livability in a space.
Air conditioners are called "split-systems" because there is an outdoor unit (the condenser) and an
indoor unit (the evaporator)[9]. These two systems work together to accomplish the task of cooling
an interior space while also dehumidifying it. This dehumidification happens as warm air from
inside passes over the cold evaporator, where the warm air condenses and loses moisture, just like
warm air does on a cold glass of lemonade. The split-system describes an air conditioner with
separate indoor and outdoor components. There is also another type of air conditioner that
combines these components into one outdoor system, known as a "packaged" system[10].

In addition, the energy demand for cooling and heating in an apartment house is determined
by using TRNSYS. By a modified genetic algorithm called the multi-island genetic algorithm, the
optimal running pattern of HVAC systems is decided to minimize energy consumption. An optimal
design method for the HVAC system of the coffee shop was proposed using both genetic algorithm
and data of cooling/heating demand load simulated by TRNSYS. It has been confirmed that energy
for equipment systems in a coffee shop can be saved by using the operation plan of HVAC systems.
The results show that this proposed method is significantly capable of determining optimal system
design for saving energy in a coffee shop. We will perform the design of an HVAC system
considering an initial cost, a running cost and emission of CO2, and so on in the future[11].

Currently, according to the report has been declared that power electricity in Phnom Penh has
been supplied 230kV within resonance amount 900MW. In 2016, the demand for power electricity
of the Phnom Penh system was approximately 757 MW. Overall, the average total energy
consumption per household 244.4 kWh each month. Within the 32% consume on air conditioner
and time to consume more between 18:00 to 6:00. Whereas refrigerators consume 17% of the total
energy consumption and consume the most between 12:00 to 18:00 it is nearly 1 hour consume 1
kWh. Significantly, the average energy intensity per household is 1.913 kWh per square meter[12].

Finally, energy demand has been increasing worldwide and the building sector represents a
large percentage of global energy consumption; hence, promoting energy efficiency in buildings
is essential. Among all building services, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning systems are
significantly responsible for building energy use. In HVAC, ventilation is the key issue for
providing suitable Indoor Air Quality, while it is also responsible for energy consumption in
buildings. In the last decades, many energy-efficient ventilation methods are developed by
researchers to mitigate energy consumption in buildings. Besides energy-efficient methods such
as natural and hybrid ventilation strategies, occupants' behaviors regarding ventilation, can also
affect the energy demand in buildings. It should be mentioned that utilizing hybrid ventilation in
buildings integrated with suitable control strategies, to adjust between mechanical and natural
ventilation, leads to considerable energy savings while an appropriate IAQ is maintained[13].

1.2. Statement of Problem

The problem that affects to design of air conditioners in a coffee shop such as indoor
thermal mass diffusion. For this reason, the demand for both enhanced indoor air quality and
energy efficiency for ventilation are considered to be significant in designing appropriate heating,
ventilating, and air-conditioning HVAC systems. Although HVAC systems have reached a high
level of technological maturity, IAQ and thermal comfort are sometimes unsatisfactory due to
unexpected deficient air volume and inefficient indoor airflow patterns[14]. Many researchers in
the domain of building design have developed advanced ventilation systems to achieve greater
comfort and improved IAQ with less energy use. To overcome this problem, it is essential to
develop an intelligent and dynamic new concept of an indoor environment control system for the
improvement of the traditional ventilation system[15].
However, the energy consumed in the air conditioning system is sensitive to load change,
ambient conditions, etc. The major purpose of air conditioning is to make occupants comfortable
with the cooled air in the room. Moreover, the system of air conditioning in the Faculty of
Mechanical Engineering building running inconsistently due to several factors. This problem is
occurred by an unstable supply of cooled air to the system. Sometimes the system was unstable to
run according to the design specification. As a consequence, the occupants and some locations are
not receiving the necessary capacity of cooled air[16].
Besides, much central residential heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC)
systems in the U.S. have substantially higher external static pressures than specified by most
standardized test procedures due to a combination of common system restrictions, including high-
pressure drop filters, cooling coils, heating elements, ductwork, and fittings. Among these
restrictions, undersized and constricted ductwork is thought to be a key culprit that leads to excess
external static pressures, particularly for compressible flexible ductwork materials[17]. Excess
static pressures can have negative energy impacts depending on the type of blower motor used in
the air handling unit (AHU) and the level of excess static pressure. Increasing diameters in duct
designs and specifying low-resistance duct materials can reduce system pressures but may also
increase the surface area for heat transfer to occur across ductwork installed in unconditioned
spaces[18].
Finally, poor thermal comfort in the cafe’s internal environment. like most West African
countries, is confronted with the lack of indoor thermal comfort standards adapted to the realities
of the region. This situation leads to the adoption of Western comfort standards, the consequences
of which can be seen in the discomfort of coffee shop occupants and above all in significant energy
losses. This justifies the need to identify, among the many comfort models developed in the
literature, those that are better adapted to the evaluation of thermal comfort in buildings[19]. Thus,
after a literature review on the subject, two comfort models were found to be relevant for the
assessment of thermal comfort in an air-conditioned coffee shop in hot and humid regions. The
application of these two models on an air-conditioned office building located in the city of Cotonou
in southern Benin resulted in comfort temperatures of 26.1°c and 26°c respectively. These values,
very close to the average neutral temperature of the occupants, reveal the effectiveness of these
adaptive models in assessing thermal comfort in the said building[20].
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