HEATING
WARMING NEWS FOR ANIMAL FOOD MANUFACTURER
A manufacturer of animal health
However, an analysis presented by
products in southern France was
ICS Cool Energy team showed how to
looking for ways to reduce its
recover the heat from the chiller plant
environmental footprint and increase
and reuse it for heating needed in the
efficiencies of its plant’s cooling and
production process. Due to the high
heating systems.
temperature required of the hot water,
The production site’s cooling
an air-cooled chiller with heat recovery
demand included cold water
was not an option that could meet the
temperatures of 6-11°C to support
demand. To satisfy the cooling needs
its manufacturing process, storage
and recover the heat when there is
of finished goods and raw materials,
a demand for simultaneous heating
as well as to provide air conditioning
and cooling, ICS Cool Energy team
for laboratory and office space. At the
proposed an alternative system based
same time, heating requirements were
on i-FH water-to-water heat pumps and
for 80°C hot water for process and
dry-coolers.
space heating.
Leaving the original heating plant
The existing system consisted of
featuring the gas-boilers as a back-up
an ageing 450kW air-cooled chiller and
and support option, the ageing aircooled
two gas boilers with 300kW capacity
chiller was replaced by two i-FH
and 85% efficiency. Originally, the
heat pumps. Thanks to their design, the
manufacturer wanted to increase the
heat pumps can run in cooling mode
efficiency and lower the environmental
only like a traditional chiller, and in
footprint of the system simply by
heat recovery mode to fully or partially
replacing the ageing equipment with
satisfy the process heating demand at
new, more efficient equivalents.
the plant.
Combining heating and cooling
processes by re-purposing waste
heat from the cooling plant resulted
in a significant reduction in gas
consumption. While the original
boiler heat plant provides additional
capacity when there is insufficient heat
recovered to satisfy the demand, the
customer experienced a 60% decrease
in gas consumption during the first
six months of operation from March
to September. Its average annual gas
consumption is expected to drop by
40-50%.
Additionally, during the three
summer months from June to August,
the customer experienced 47% lower
electricity consumption from its
cooling operations, following cooling
system modification, and in conditions
of variable cooling demand and
weather. Annually, it expects a drop in
energy cost between 7-15%, and an
increase in the plant’s average energy
efficiency ratio (EER) from 1.19 to 2.1.
to keep patients comfortable and there
is always demand for domestic hot
water. If we equip the building with a
heat recovery chiller, it will generate
hot water as a by-product of the chilled
water system. The system can provide
heating when there is a demand, or when
not simultaneously required, storing the
cooling energy through use of ice banks.
This helps connect the heating and
cooling demands within a 24-hour span.
Chillers and cooling plant are used
to cool manufacturing processes and
facilities, and just by doing so generate
waste heat that typically gets lost to
atmosphere. This heat does not just
have to be wasted and can be harnessed
effectively by Industrial Free Heating
(i-FH) units (pictured, left).
EFFICIENCIES
While heat pumps are inherently efficient,
not every heat pump offers the same
results. Water-to-water heat pumps
can reach a seasonal coefficient of
performance (SCOP) of five or more,
which means the heating capacity is
at least five times the electrical power
consumption. Since this kind of system
provides cooling too, the avoided power
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