The energy slab is a ground coupled heat exchanger equipped in building slab structures, which represents a layout similar to the horizontal ground heat exchanger (GHEX). The energy slab is installed as one component of the floor slab layers in order to utilize the underground structure as a hybrid energy structure. However, as the energy slab is horizontally arranged, its thermal performance is inevitably less than the conventional vertical GHEXs. Therefore, stainless steel (STS) pipes are alternatively considered as a heat exchanger instead of high density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes in order to enhance thermal performance of GHEXs. Moreover, not only a floor slab but also a wall slab can be utilized as a heat-exchangeable energy slab in order to maximize the use of underground space effectively. In this paper, four field-scale energy slabs were constructed in a test bed, which consist of the STS and HDPE pipe, and a series of thermal response tests (TRTs) was conducted to evaluate relative heat exchange efficiency per unit pipe length according to the pipe material and the configuration of energy slabs. The energy slab equipped with the STS pipe shows higher thermal performance than the energy slab with the HDPE pipe. In addition, thermal performance of the wall-type energy slab is almost equivalent to the floor-type energy slab.

The effects of operational conditions of cooling water system on energy consumption for central cooling system are researched by using TRNSYS program. Cooling tower water pump flow rate, cooling tower fan flow rate, and condenser water temperature with various dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures are varied and their effects on total and component power consumption are studied. If the fan maximum flow rates of cooling tower is decreased, cooling tower fan and total power consumptions are increased. If the cooling tower water pump maximum flow rates is decreased, chiller and total power consumptions are increased. If condenser water set-point temperature is increased, chiller power consumption is increased and cooling tower fan power consumption is decreased, respectively.

Refrigerant having high global warming potentials will be phased out due to environmental protection issues. R410A has been widely used in geothermal heat pump. However, it has a little high GWP by 2088 value. One of the recommended substitute for R410A refrigerant is R452B which having a GWP by 698 value. In this paper, the heating and cooling performance of the water-to-water geothermal heat pump unit with R452B was experimentally investigated. The performance of the heat pump adopting R452B was also compared with the system applying R410A. The heating and cooling capacity of R452B heat pump system showed a slightly lower values within 2% comparing with R410A system. However, the R452B system's coefficient of performance was enhanced by 5.2% and 13.7% at heating and cooling mode, respectively.

Recently, It has increased the importance of building energy saving. Pipe insulation as well as building envelope insulation is to improve energy efficiency and reduce the energy loss. However, there continues to use the old standard for pipe insulation that is one of the most important elements in energy savings in buildings. The purpose of this study is to propose suitable pipe insulation thickness for reducing building energy use. The study also reviews pipe insulation thickness standard in accordance to Korea standard, ASHRAE 90.1 and BS5422 and analyzed through thermal simulation. As a result, it is necessary to apply the performance design method of the pipe insulation thickness to reduce the energy loss of the piping.

The heating and cooling air conditioning field has been increasing the problems of energy consumption and global warming in the world. A geothermal heat pump has been known as one of the highest efficient heating and cooling system. In this study, the analysis about the test standards of the geothermal heat pump of the Republic of Korea was executed. From the research, the following results were given. It is needed to address the domestic test standard for direct heat exchange geothermal heat pump. Water to air multi geothermal heat pump test standard was only developed in Korea. The test standard to calculate a seasonal energy efficiency ratio for cooling period and heat seasonal performance factor for heating period should be newly developed to estimate actual annual energy consumption and $CO_2$ emission.