Exergy analysis of residential heating systems: performance of whole system vs performance of major equipment

This paper presents the evaluation of energy and exergy performance of several design alternatives of residential heating systems for a house. All component-based models, written and solved in the Engineering Equation Solver (EES) program, are assembled in several design alternatives for the heating, ventilation and domestic hot water (HEAT-DHW) systems. An energy-efficient house in Montreal is used as a case study. The following indices are used for assessing the overall performance of the selected systems at winter peak design conditions: energy efficiency, exergy efficiency, entropy generation, exergy destruction, energy demand, and exergy demand.