31 January 2024
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The Daikin chiller in place at Addenbrooke's Treatment Centre
Air conditioning, chiller and compressor services company LH-plc has completed a major chiller replacement project at Addenbrooke's Treatment Centre in Cambridge, part of the Addenbrooke's Hospital complex.
The company says that through careful chiller selection and high-quality installation, the project is saving the centre more than a third on energy costs.
The original chiller, one of three in the treatment centre, had been in place since the early 2000s and had come to the end of its working life. The client - engineering and construction group Bouygues - wanted a like-for-like replacement.
Chiller selection was, however, made challenging because the technology has moved on considerably in the last two decades, so a directly equivalent replacement was not possible. LH-plc offered four potential alternative chillers and then narrowed the selection down to an 800kW Daikin air-cooled chiller. LH-plc is a Daikin D1 business partner which allows it to offer the best price, a free-of-charge extended warranty and dedicated technical support.
Paul King, project sales manager at LH-plc, said: "Selecting the right supply and installation partner is critical in any contract, but the two most important factors to consider are specifying the correct chiller and ensuring excellent installation. Without these, the chiller will not operate as it should, and performance will be adversely affected."
A particular challenge in this contract was the need to work with Cambridge City Airport for cranage permissions.
King said: "Using cranes often entails a partial road closure, and/or permits, or permissions to crane lift from a certain area. And, in the case of this project, traffic management was required. Cambridge City Airport is just four miles away and the crane was positioned directly in line with the approach flight path. The airport also needed to know about the crane in case of air ambulance traffic.
"This meant we had to communicate with the right people at the airport to gain permission to complete this project. Having done this, we were asked to reconfigure the lift plan to reduce maximum jib height by 3m to keep the airport authorities happy. The actual strip out and install was quite straightforward, although it was a breezy day, so the installation team had some waiting time to avoid heavy wind gusts."
LH-plc's project team supplied the chiller, pipework, electrical connections and project management for the Addenbrooke's Treatment Centre. It was also responsible for commissioning the work. King added: "Although the chiller is a like-for-like replacement in terms of kW capacity, because it is far more efficient than models of the past, it was able to run the entire chilled water system on its own without the aid of the other two chillers on site, even with an outdoor ambient temperature of more than 27°C.
"Also, the replacement chiller has resulted in an energy saving of around 35% and considerable peace of mind for the customer because of the chiller's well-acknowledged reliability."
The Daikin EWAD820TZ-SSB2 air-cooled chiller with inverter screw compressor has an average energy efficiency ratio of 2.9 and a European seasonal energy efficiency ratio of 4.5. It claims low operating noise levels, excellent reliability and infinite capacity contro, while chilled water temperature fluctuation is avoided with stepless regulation and variable volume ratio control.
