Chillers
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Chillers suited to ‘lift and shift’
Aermec’s Graham Etherington explores the advantages modular chillers have over conventional chillers L
et’s step back and take a look at some of the benefits on offer. As an industry we have become so used to offering
off-the-shelf products and the customer expects a seamless supply chain with immediate or timely product offerings. But there’s no reason why modular chillers cannot meet those needs too. For a start, modular chillers are not intrinsically different to standard chillers. They still comprise the same basic components – compressors, condensers and evaporators. It is also quite common for each module to have dual circuit units with their own electrical panels and control logic.
What sets modular chillers apart from their
standard counterparts is that, depending on the manufacturer’s design parameters more than one module can be connected together quickly and easily to provide a wide range of cooling capacities. Even then, more units can be added in the future. There are many modular offerings on the market. Some modular chillers allow for up to six units to be connected together, providing a system capacity from 90kW up to 1,080kW for example, whereas others enable arrays of up to eight or 16 modules. Modular chillers allow for connectivity, providing
system capacities from upwards of 90kW up to 1,080kW for example and in arrays of up to nine or even 36 modules. They can also offer free cooling capability and the potential of using HFO refrigerants. The Aermec modular approach includes a choice
of A2W NRV scroll, and water chilled models such as the WTX Turbocor and our award winning WWM chiller (with an ESEER of 6.5) which sets new standards and offers an innovative solution for businesses looking for a scalable approach; up to 32 units to be linked together hydraulically, either side- by-side or back-to-back, in a world first, the WWM can also be stacked on two levels (up to 16 on each level), offering flexible layout options and keeping the overall unit dimensions to a minimum. Whatever the size of the configuration they can all
June 2019
readily offer a wide range of cooling capacities. Operationally the chilled water supply and return from each module’s heat exchangers are piped respectively to the main chilled water supply and return headers which enables each module to provide cooling capacity for the chilled water return as required. Air cooled models deploy their own air-cooled condenser whereas water cooled models employ their own water-
cooled condenser. Modular chillers are available in cooling only, heat pump and heat recovery configuration, providing even greater flexibility and energy efficiencies. But the real benefits lie in the actual modular design which addresses key issues of size, capacity, flexibility, redundancy, future expandability and factors in environmental concerns too. Retrofitting equipment in existing buildings can be
challenging, but not anymore if the modular route is adopted. Whereas a single standard chiller may require road closures modular chillers lend themselves to the ‘lift and shift’ approach, which may avoid any road closures and crane costs, as the chiller modules are substantially smaller, lighter and can easily be installed.
Flexibility and efficiency
Every FM manager expects efficiency and flexibility not least in mission critical environments. When it comes to increasing capacity, the modular approach offers significant partial load efficiencies and the latest generation of products offer greater flexibility, so that for example in an office building where the cooling requirements may be lower over a weekend when a skeleton staff is on shift, advanced scheduling will enable cooling requirements to be lowered and the load to be reduced generating significant energy savings. One of the other attractive benefits is built in
redundancy. As each module has its own dedicated power, this means that the entire system does not need to be shut down to repair one module, offering
true redundancy, but it also means that each module can undergo maintenance without interrupting or compromising the ability of the other module to provide cooling. If a conventional chiller goes down it can be a catastrophe, but what are the odds of say, all eight chillers experiencing the same fault? Although there will always be a role for
conventional chillers, when it comes to expandability the only route is to incur great expense. When a demand for increased cooling capacities is presented, the modular approach allows for incremental system growth, quickly and easily. There is no escape from regulations, compliance
issues, EC directives and whilst these are rarely major purchasing drivers, environmental considerations feature highly on most companies list of specifications. Modular chillers have smaller refrigerant charges and therefore use less refrigerant, which is good news for the environment and has the added benefit of reducing costs, refrigerant monitoring, maintenance and reduces the total cost of ownership. Although there will always be some applications
that are more suited to conventional chillers, modularity has opened up a new market which is attracting customers keen to maximise options and future-proof their HVAC systems as far as possible. Modular chillers are compact, manoeuvrable and
have a low centre of gravity making them much easier to install where there are height or width restrictions and limited access. They offer an efficient, flexible solution that delivers excellent performance levels and true redundancy. Their flexibility and ability to add or decrease modules as required means they lend themselves to addressing a wide range of solutions and multiple applications including retrofits or mission critical sites where scalability is a prerequisite. They offer a win, win solution for customers and manufacturers alike. Manufacturers gain a wider portfolio to address multiple applications and the modular approach provides greater autonomy for the customer when it comes to specifying and evaluating solutions. What’s not to like?
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