AIR CONDITIONING, COOLING, VENTILATION


Evaporative cooling: better for business and energy bills


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Mark Fishwick, the director of Inergy Group delves into the advantages of evaporative cooling over traditional air conditioning systems in large commercial and industrial buildings


ooling commercial and industrial buildings can be a challenge for UK businesses. In recent years, the spiralling energy costs have put pressure on businesses with


regard to finding new and innovative ways to achieve the same result with less capital outlay and less maintenance. New system installs have sometimes been put on hold and maintenance schedules squeezed, leaving many businesses with the challenge of managing ageing HVAC assets and deciding when and where to invest. Systems without regular maintenance can experience unpredictable downtime and parts availability is not always guaranteed.


Business owners will always wonder how they can improve the cost effectiveness, ease of maintenance, and sustainability of systems their business needs. When it comes to cooling business premises, there’s a solution that not enough people know about – evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling is an alternative cooling method that not only offers higher energy efficiency then alternative HVAC solutions but also has cheaper running costs. Since then, it has been our mission to develop and use this technology to tackle the cooling challenges in industrial processes.


Cooling challenges in industrial processes


With regard to cooling, many industrial processes have a high heat-gain, whereby the process itself generates heat which must be managed. There are numerous sectors where this is occurring, two prime examples from our customer experience are industrial scale bakeries and plastic moulding facilities. In an industrial-scale bakery using modern


production methods the production line may be operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A constant production of heat and steam from large ovens working to high temperatures must be managed carefully especially given the health and safety requirements for food production areas.


Plastic moulding facilities manufacture a variety of end products from everyday items such as plastic bottles for household goods to more specialist storage and packaging products. In a plastic moulding facility heat is used to mould the liquid plastic but chemical particles may also need extraction to maintain a safe working environment. Production in any of these facilities may be adversely affected by the heat-gain in the process itself. Unplanned and unmanaged heat in any manufacturing facility has the potential to stop production resulting in a cascade of business interruption, lost revenues, damaged stock and missed productivity targets. All potentially severe impacts for any business to consider. In addition to heat-gain from the industrial


processes we should also note that UK air temperatures are rising, the top 10 warmest years for the UK since records began in 1884 have all occurred since 2002. As the UK continues to experience temperature rises and more seasonal fluctuations we need to look to those more experienced with warmer climates to optimise and improve our own approach to cooling these spaces.


So, let’s consider the choices to cool large commercial and industrial spaces. Most of us will be familiar will conventional air conditioning (AC) systems but let’s review how they work:


The first “modern” air conditioning unit was built by the American inventor Willis Carrier in 1902 and was used to control the temperature in the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing & Publishing Company in Brooklyn, New York.


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This innovation helped to control the paper dimension and ink alignment. Cotton mills and textile plants were amongst the early adopters with the technological advancement soon spreading across the world. Today a conventional AC unit removes heat and moisture from the air. It uses a chemical refrigerant to cool the air which is then re- circulated in the building. The same air is then filtered as it returns to the unit.


Key facts of conventional air conditioning


• Temperature can be controlled. • Air is mostly recirculated within the space or building.


• The resultant energy performance of the system can be negatively impacted by high external temperatures i.e. The hotter the external temperature the greater the amount of energy needed to run the unit and maintain the desired temperature.


• Complete systems are expensive to install and maintain due to the more complex requirement associated to the refrigerants used within the units.


• The cost to run large systems is expensive resulting in high and unpredictable energy bills.


• Chemical refrigerants are used ultimately negatively contributing to climate change.


Conventional air conditioning cannot be said to be a bad choice however, in our experience, it is more suited to smaller spaces with a defined use. Office spaces would be a good example of where air conditioning systems can still be a good solution albeit without the benefit of reduced running costs. A fantastic sustainable alternative to conventional air conditioning is an evaporative cooling system. Historically championed in warmer climate countries, the technology delivers several benefits over and above the conventional and familiar air conditioning. Evaporative cooling solutions Reflecting on global history, examples of evaporative cooling can be seen as far back as 1350AD. One case describes how in Cairo, Egypt, a building was purposely situated up- wind, to catch the air and let it flow down the building and across a fountain which increased the relative humidity and lowered the temperature of the surrounding air. A fascinating early adoption of the evaporative cooling effect.


Evaporative cooling systems as the name suggests use evaporation to cool the air; surprisingly no chemical refrigerants are involved in this process. Fresh, filtered air enters the system and is pulled though a cooling pad where the heat is absorbed. The resultant cooled air is distributed throughout the space via ducts.


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