Use industrial FREE COOLING in cold climates for big savings
Being located in the cold climate of New England, we often witness manufacturers who run expensive chillers in an attempt to cool fluids to 50°—when its 30° outside! It’s analogous to using an air conditioner on a cool day instead of opening a window. Even in an industrial application, it's more efficient and effective to let Mother Nature do the cooling for you.
It's important to note that this cannot be accomplished in a warmer climate, and the return on investment won’t be there for limited- use applications. However, if you have a steady cooling load year-round, there are many free initiatives that offer attractive payback.
First and foremost, adding dry free cooling with a radiator is simple and effective. The radiator produces the same cooling as a chiller at only 5% the cost! One caution: you cannot send water or anything else that can freeze outside to the radiator. When the system is down, the fluid can freeze and ruin the radiator. If a non freezing fluid like glycol cannot be used, use an intermediate heat exchanger. You may lose a few degrees and potentially could have to add another pump but it will often produce savings similar to those mentioned above.
A favorite recommendation of ours is evaporative free cooling, which offers as much as 25% more free cooling hours per year in comparison to dry free cooling.
A great trick for gaining additional free cooling efficiency is partial free cooling, which initiates free cooling based on the warmer return temperature. With either dry or evaporative you can add as much as 25% more hours. This will save an average of 50% of the energy during these partial free cooling hours.
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Free cooling is a crucial topic for energy efficient facilities. We'd love to read your comments. You may also e-mail questions or potential blog topics to blogfeedback@imec-us.com.
ABOUT JOE D’AMBROSIO
Joe D’Ambrosio is president and chief engineer of IMEC. An innovator in industrial and mechanical engineering, he has served as a consultant to the nuclear, petrochemical, biotech, semiconductor, electronic, food, power generating, and construction industries. He has created and conducted numerous training programs to educate industrial plant personnel, power generating advisors, and engineering consultants on a wide range of topics; and he has testified as an expert witness in industrial litigation.
D’Ambrosio became a nationally recognized expert in compressed air technology as CEO and chief engineer of Air Power of New England, where he led a staff of more than 50 employees and was a trailblazer in industrial service organization management. He is certified as an AirMaster+ by the Compressed Air Challenge, an initiative of the U.S. Dept. of Energy to build awareness of best practices in the design, installation, and maintenance of compressed air systems. He contributed to the creation of the Compressed Air Challenge’s Best Practices manual.
To satisfy a growing demand for industrial water recirculation system engineering and installation, D’Ambrosio founded Systems H2O in 2000. The turn-key design/build nature of these large energy-efficient projects led to opportunities as a general contractor for commercial construction requiring extensive heating and cooling systems. Systems H2O changed its name to IMEC (Innovative Mechanical Engineering and Contracting) in 2008 to better represent the company’s range of services. D’Ambrosio holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Boston College.