District Cooling
General Information
- Description
- Features
- Advantages
- Implementation
- Siemens experience
Solutions for District Cooling
The growth of cities will be a dominant demographic trend of coming decades. The current proportion of the world‘s population living in urban areas just passed the halfway mark. The United Nations expects it to rise to almost 60% by 2025, and to reach 70% around 2050.
As cities grow, personal living conditions in cities become more important. Energy supply, whether electricity, steam, hot water or chilled water, will, in the future, place major challenges on infrastructure. Modern architectural design generates a rapidly growing cooling demand.
Siemens Cooling Solution Generates 10,000 Tons of Refrigeration
The Siemens Refrigeration Compressor Package (SRCP) is equipped with two highly efficient compressors, generating 10,000 tons of refrigeration (RT). Both engineering and construction companies benefit from the space-saving effect of the SRCP. Space is money, especially when the district cooling plant is located in the middle of the city.
There are many reasons for this growing cooling demand , including:
- People‘s increasing expectations of more living space corresponding to the spacious public areas
- Construction of new buildings with huge window areas to provide sunlight
- Buildings containing more heat-generating equipment such as computers
Cooling Plant Reduces Greenhouse Gas
A survey among 522 stakeholders in 25 large, urban agglomerations worldwide indicates the willingness to invest in an improved environment. There‘s a strong interest in megacities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants – megacities already emit roughly 10% of global CO2 emissions.
A district cooling plant offers a perfect alternative to conventional window A/C, since the cooling capacity is generated in an effective and efficient manner. A central district cooling plant generates cool water and distributes it through a network of piping system to individual customer buildings. District cooling has been implemented in a variety of structures, both private and government-owned utilities, universities and airports. The district cooling systems serve a wide variety of types of buildings, including:
- Commercial offices
- Residential
- Hotels
- Sport areas
The benefits of district cooling are:
- Comfort and convenience for customers as there is no noisy equipment in the window or on the roof
- Improved energy efficiency
- Enhanced environmental protection
- System reliability
- Decreased building capital costs
- Improved architectural design flexibility
A switch from window A/C to an efficient district cooling plant with the Siemens Refrigeration Compressor Package (SRCP 10) is like reducing the related emissions from 70 thousand cars to 30 thousand cars. Using the electrical power generated by a Siemens solar thermal power plant, eliminates the emissions completely.
Features of the Siemens Compressor Chiller Package:
- Capacity 10,000 tons of refrigeration with one unit
- Cooling liquid R134a
- Two compressors on one single shaft
- Each compressor has inlet guide vanes
- Lowest friction losses
- No gear required
- One electrical motor as driver
- Motor available for 50Hz or 60Hz
- Dimensions 11.2x7.7x5.0 m (LxWxH)
- Max. weight of single transport unit 45 tons
Advantages of the Siemens Compressor Chiller Package:
- Excellent coefficient of performance (COP)
- Enhanced efficiency
- High reliability as the compressor design is based on oil and gas requirements
- Less space needed
- Less engineering/piping
- Overall attractive life cycle costs
Implementation
The cooling demand in cities is directly correlated to the impact of the sun, in other words the load profile of a district cooling plant varies drastically from day to night.
To compensate for the varying refrigeration demand, a combination of the Siemens Refrigeration Compressor Package with smaller chiller equipment is feasible.
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- More than 40 steam turbine generator sets in Spain, using parabolic trough technology
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