Recently introduced chiller family based on Turbocor oil-free compressors and distinguished by high energy efficiency and environmental safety, received falling-film evaporators in addition to flooded models.
Kaltra, the specialist in air-conditioning and heat transfer technologies, modernized its Turbocor compressor-based chillers with air-cooled condensers and presents performance highlights of the series.
The Lightstream Turbo II series is a unique development in the field of demand-responsive chillers, specially designed for variable-load cooling and optimized for the novel lower-GWP refrigerants R1234ze and R513a.
Kaltra has extended the capacity range of its Lightstream Freecool inverter chiller to 1800kW of refrigeration. Lightstream Freecool chiller lineup was introduced in 2017, initially with a capacity range of 450 to 1200kW.
As global warming potential becomes more of an issue, a growing number of industries and businesses moving toward new refrigerants. One of the best examples is the recent upgrade completed by Kaltra for ArcelorMittal’s hot strip rolling mill cooling in Belgium. Recently, the cooling system was driven by water-cooled chillers charged with large amounts of refrigerant R134a, which is characterized by high GWP value of 1430.
It is well-known that the cooling equipment dominates in energy consumption in commercial buildings. Alongside, electricity prices are increasing around the world, increasing pressure on facility managers to reduce the operating costs incurred by operating chillers. The facility managers at a newly constructed commercial building in Canary Wharf, London, were tasked to build and deploy a central air conditioning system with improved energy efficiency and lifecycle value, and Kaltra was invited to contribute to this task.
The air conditioning chiller supporting the movie theatre building in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, was the original equipment that has reached the end of its service life. To address the recurring maintenance issues associated with air conditioning system, the building owner has decided to replace existing equipment, including the original chillers installed at the roof gantry, with a modern energy-efficient system.
In response to the rising demand for high-end, energy-efficient cooling solutions, Kaltra has expanded its flagship lineup of Turbocor-based chillers. So far, the customers have been able to pick from the models with the capacity range of up to 1800kW. For increased requirements, Kaltra has added 5- and 6-compressor models to Powerstream Turbo chiller family making it suitable for large commercial and industrial cooling applications with up to 4600kW cooling power per chiller unit. With an ESEER value as high as 10.50 and new control software which optimizes the performance of multi-compressor units, Powerstream Turbo chillers meet the highest demands for energy efficiency at any operating condition.
This week Kaltra announced its new chiller family designed with screw compressors, a successor of well-known Lightstream Screw range.
With different screw compressors, inverter-driven and fixed-speed, Kaltra launched its widest chiller lineup which includes R134a and R1234ze models, 160 in total. Units with R513a refrigerant are available by request. New Lightstream Screw V chillers cover all applications in the capacity range from 200 to 3600kW. In addition to process cooling and air conditioning tasks, the new screw chillers are addressed for mission-critical applications where the reliability and precise temperature control are the crucial factors.
Over time, increasing power density and growing number of installed servers had increased the heat load on Telecity data center cooling system which operates on a 24/7 basis 365 days on the year. Existing fixed-speed chillers installed during the building’s construction could not meet the cooling demand and provide the necessary redundancy Telecity required. As a result, the cooling system needed to be upgraded to keep pace with the data center’s growth.
From an energy usage point of view, chillers are the most energy-intensive equipment to run and the key components within a chiller that impact performance and energy consumption are compressors. Turbocor compressors with built-in variable speed control can offer substantial energy savings of 50-60% compared to chillers equipped with fixed-speed compressors. In addition to the stepless capacity control, the Turbocor compressors employ built-in inlet guide vanes to trim the compressor capacity at low loads.
The main drivers which fuelled the modernization of a cooling plant at 4.000 sq. meter outlet were rising energy bills and a sharp increase in maintenance costs. The original chiller plant which included units contained ozone-depleting refrigerant was in need of replacing with more efficient and quiet equipment. Based on the survey and energy analysis performed by Kaltra engineers, the new equipment necessary to replace the existing equipment for an energy saving modernization was specified, including two 300kW variable speed drive chillers, together with quieter dry coolers.
At the Sanofi/France production site, the original chilled water plant functioned as initially intended, but a steady decline in energy performance and sharp increases in maintenance costs of the plant equipment were experienced by the customer. Prior to starting the upgrade project of the plant, the owners made the decision to invest by using technology giving the highest return over the lifecycle of the equipment.
The Lightstream Turbo chiller family has been designed with attention to every detail to maximize operational reliability. It is ideally suited to the requirements of mission-critical applications like data centers, telecom facilities and clean rooms, and in every area where reliability is a crucial factor.
Due to its excellent efficiency at part-load conditions, the Lighstream Turbo chiller is a brilliant economy solution for applications where the heat load is not constant or expected to increase.
