Author details

2.4. Successful application of the management approach

3. Conclusions

26 HVAC System

Acknowledgements

In 1990, the Mexican federal government started a local program intended to save energy in residential households in the city of Mexicali. The first stage of the program consisted of roof insulation and by 1997, the replacement of old low-efficiency air conditioning systems with new high-efficiency units was initiated. The replacement of refrigerators with more than 10 years of use began in 2003. This program for energy saving is called Program for Integral Systematic Saving ((ASI) by its acronym in Spanish) and remains in progress currently.

The application of the methodology outlined earlier allowed to sustain the energy saving strategies and actions of the ASI program, first in the city of Mexicali then in the rest of the country. Thermal simulation and DH methodology have proven to be a powerful tool for over more than 20 years in which a large number of projects have been developed with the residential, public, governmental and industrial sectors. One of them provided the technical support for the creation of the ASI program. [27]. An evaluation of the impact on consumption habits of inhabitants due

The methodology described earlier has proven to be a useful tool for the analysis and evaluation of projects related to saving and efficient use of energy. The use of DH as a primary variable has shown to be an excellent option for the characterization of the climate of a region, especially in hot-dry environments. However, its application is not restricted only to these climates, but it can also be extended to any climate without reducing reliability. Likewise, the utilization of DH greatly simplifies and speeds up the calculation when performing thermal simulation due to its excellent degree of correlation with heat gain, cooling load and heat extraction rates. At the same time, applying the DH criterion also allows to estimate the electrical consumption and demand of HVAC systems in a reliable way. A representative example of the usefulness of this methodology has been its application to the development and assessment of those projects sustaining the energy saving programs of the Mexican federal

The ASI program started its application as a local energy-saving program in 1990 in the city of Mexicali, with a current population of over 1 million inhabitants, and because of the success and positive impacts achieved in reducing peak demand and energy saving, it has been

The authors wish to thank to PFCE program 2018 for funding publishing fees to Universidad

to the actions and strategies carried out by the ASI program was made recently [28].

government, which are currently grouped as the ASI program.

extended to warm-climate regions all over the country.

Autónoma de Baja California, Instituto de Ingeniería.

Carlos Pérez-Tello\*, Héctor Campbell-Ramírez, José Alejandro Suástegui-Macías and Marianela Soledad Reinhardt

\*Address all correspondence to: carlosperez@uabc.edu.mx

Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Mexicali, México
