The authors hope to develop an air-conditioning system that processes the latent heat load and the sensible heat load separately. This would enable the efficiency of the chilling unit to be improved because the temperature of the chilled water used for cooling would be higher than normal. However, if lukewarm water is used, there is insufficient cooling and dehumidification. Therefore, a dehumidifier such as a desiccant air-conditioning system is needed. Using the waste heat generated when the desiccant air-conditioning system is in operation increases efficiency. The authors are developing a prototype desiccant humidity control system that makes use of the waste heat generated by a water source heat pump. This paper describes the results of an experiment that was conducted for this prototype based on the assumption that it would be installed in an office building. The dehumidification performance achieved was sufficient to process the indoor latent heat load. The prototype was able to adjust the indoor relative humidity from 40% to 60% under conditions in which the indoor latent heat load varied. Humidification without the use of water was possible even in the absence of an indoor latent heat load when the outdoor absolute humidity was 3.5 g/kg' or more.
