Summary:

This paper presents results of the verification of a heat exchanger composed of gravitation thermal pipes installed in a broiler chicken feeding facility. The objective of the study was to verify the possibility of the application of a power management system including a heat recovery system in a heavy-duty environment of a broiler chicken fattening facility and to specify effects of the system upon the specific consumption of energy for space heating and ventilation of the animal house. The calculation of the thermal balance of the animal house documents that the power management system that includes a heat recovery exchanger unit may reduce the thermal capacity of external sources of heat in the animal house by 26.5% even when subject to extreme conditions and at the atmospheric temperature of -12°C and the age of chickens being 1 day. The results of the metering and calculations of the efficiency have proven that the heat exchanger reaches the operational efficiency of 10–47% and thermal efficiency of 20–80% even during the most demanding operational first twenty days of the breeding cycle of broiler chickens. The specific consumption of energy for space heating and ventilation related to 1 kg of the live weight of chicken in the animal house facility A provided with a heat recovery exchanger unit at the average atmospheric temperature during the cycle being 4.3°C amounted to 278.5 Wh. In the animal house B as not provided with the heat recovery exchanger units hosting the same number of chickens and provided with the same process and thermal loss due heat transmission through peripheral structures being one half compared to the animal house A, the specific consumption of energy per 1 kg of the live weight of chicken was 420.5 Wh.