ENERGY SAVING
The best things in life are free
Often, something that is claimed to be free comes with a hidden cost or impractical compromise. However, some HVAC technologies effectively offer something for nothing, as Tim Mitchell, sales and marketing director of Klima-Therm, explains.
T
he expression ‘free for the taking’ implies receiving something for nothing with no strings attached. This is, understandably, often viewed with
suspicion because it sounds too good to be true. There are, however, situations in which it really does apply. Take free cooling – a process that involves exploiting low external air temperatures to help cool over-heating spaces directly or to chill water, which can then be employed in industrial processes or air conditioning systems. It employs external ambient temperature to reject heat, rather than using a refrigeration process. Lowering the air temperature in a building by using
naturally cooled air or water instead of mechanical refrigeration dramatically reduces the need for powered
34 January 2021
cooling systems, thus providing big savings in energy – up to 70% according to some estimates – and significant carbon reductions. BREEAM (the Building Research Establishment (BRE)
Environmental Assessment Method) defines a number of free cooling strategies, including night time cooling, ground coupled air cooling, displacement ventilation, evaporative cooling and absorption cooling (https://bit. ly/3laYh8J). Free cooling has been used very effectively in chiller
technology for many years. The latest innovations, however, take the idea of free cooling a step further. For example, technologically advanced ‘polyvalent’ equipment uses a hybrid four-pipe air or water source heat pump to produce simultaneous or independent cooling and heating
www.acr-news.com
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