Trends of Airconditioning & Future

[munesh]

Can we put our ideas on the future of Airconditioning?
There is a radical shift in the splits in India. The commercial segement is asking for more energy efficient machines. Global warming/ Ozone depletion all form the basis of decision making.
Specialization with respect to airconditioning equipment is much in demand.
Can I understand on some of your ideas on the same.
This will be a fun to collate what all people think about this topic.

[munesh]

The trends of airconditioning in India to be specific is moving towards Green Building Norms.
The use of return air to enhance the efficiencies of the equipment is also a unique thing which is being utilized.
The fight for the sales is based on the initial cost as well as the running cost for the equipment.
The viability of the project depends on the lowering of the operational cost. Airconditioning forming a part of the operational cost hence try is to decrease its cost of running also.
In room Aircon the Star rating is gathering momentum.
So clearly I see a trend for the efficient equipments in place.
Please add on to the ideas above. Trust me it is worth the exercise for all of us.
Hope for more participation on this.

[jason09]

im finding the turbocore chillers are gaining in popularity ,oilless ,frictionless and energy efficient especially at partial load they ll b around for a while i imagine.
also the multi head vrv systems appear popular at the moment.

[philjd26]

hmmmm

i can see the industry taking a huge turn over the next few years, when you look around at the hvac plants at present you can see ooddles of kw going to waste..ie comms ccu,chillers,splits, extract air, heat from flues, waste water, i would say we are going to be very busy over the next few years with modifications...air conditioning on the othe r hand i think is going to be vrv heat recovery for building application, i think the daikin vrv plus is the way forward,consisting of 3 x vrv to a common function box...and soon flare connection will be a thing of the past, with commision procedures becoming more intense i.e pressure testing..these new f gas laws are going to be so much of a nightmare that the mention of a leak will have you quaking in your safety shoes...so i would say in time installers and manufactures will be held responible for any charge loss, and will have a lot of head aches from clients who have to account plant

[Makeit go Right]

One of the main thrusts of the F-Gas Regulations is to ensure that refrigeration engineers are trained to a minimum level of knowledge/proficiency, and that inadequately trained people are restrained from handling these gases.

I am sure the trend will be for manufacturers of aircon equipment to stop charging their condensers with refrigerant gas. There is no real need for them to do this, as any competent refrigeration engineer can easily insert the gas when commissioning the system. The condensers need only contain the basic charge of oil and a gas charge of Nitrogen.

There are at least three reasons why this makes sense:

a) No installer would be able to install such refrigerant equipment unless they procure the necessary refrigerant gas from a gas distributor. And the gas distributors are already refusing to supply to anyone who cannot prove they have the legal minimum qualifications. Simply, one shuts out the bulk of the untrained people who are still dealing with these refrigerant gases. This control measure ensures the intended level of safety use when handling the gases.

b) Transportation of refrigerant gas should really be in a suitable mechanically-safe gas cylinders - not conveyed within a delicate copper coil, which is the case with every condensing unit shipped from such far off countries as China/Japan to the UK. All the way around the planet this gas is housed in very weak copper containers (coils). One gentle tickle with a fork-lift and there goes another few kilograms of gas into the atmosphere.

c) UK distributors of the air-conditioning equipment that contain the charge of refrigerant gas would also be relieved of the extra responsibilities they should already have of handling/distributing F-gas within their aircon equipment.

This is also a very simple administration job to control: HM Customs just prohibits any aircon equipment entering the country with refrigerant gas inside it.

(Portables would have to be looked at separately.)

[Argus]

......... HM Customs just prohibits any aircon equipment entering the country with refrigerant gas inside it.

(Portables would have to be looked at separately.)

I think that would be illegal under EU law.

But I agree with most of what you say and for manufacturers it would be a serous cost saving, if they can get away with it.


But don't hold your breath waiting......



.

[acbloke]

I am just getting involved with a eureka system Where basically you you divert the discarge pipe from a constant heat source - computer room etc - and preheat hot water for same building through a couple of coils inside the tank. Info very sketchy @ moment but will be playing with the kit over the next 2 weeks so will post any news. Bit like the Altherma from Daikin but without the whistles and bells and of course the price.

[US Iceman]

Another aspect of reducing energy use is the total energy used by the system at any one point in time. The concern as I see it is not the full load efficiency, but the efficiency of the system as it operates.

Not all systems run at full load conditions therefore if their part load effects use more energy during longer periods of time the total energy use increases. For this reason I think it is important to investigate the systems using more engineering and less importance on systems that are quick to install by persons having lower skills.

This is great for the manufacturers and installing companies, but could be horrible for long term operating costs.

This applies to refrigeration systems or any AC system I feel.

[Lowrider]

although I agree on not transporting unit charged, for us,a manufacturer, it's not an option.Specially when they are charged with nitrogen instead.

Labor now is much more then material. If an unit comes nitrogen charged, we would have to vacuum it and charge with the right amount. The bulk of the machine's we have would just simply become too expensive,not even talking about just getting all the refridgerant needed to the machine. Law states that if a I was to do lifting of a certain part/bottle/whatever on a regular basis, it can't weigh more then 25kg.
You charge a machine with, say 250 kg, with bottles of 25kg, holding just 17kg refridgerant and have them transported to the roof or basement!

Machine cost would tripple!

We get our machine's pre charged with oil and refridgerant and I must say, if even 1% of them leak I'm overstating it dramaticly!

Don't know about the split unit's, don't work with that stuff!

[munesh]

Refrigerant issue is one amongst many.
Energy Conservation in Building construction.
Bringing seasonal efficiencies in the equipment.
Also Dual power tariff and peak usage is causing the use of TSS in India.
People are now asking for all these aspects.
Rise in COP of machines is another.
We have not been able to capture GWP yet but this is also picking up.

[mohan]

Using effecient heat exchangers shall address the challenges of energy efficiency.

If you replace conventional Fin and tube heat exchanger with microchannel heat exchanger, you get around 15% more energy efficiency. This heat exchanger reduces lot metal and gas requirement.

[Sridhar1312]

moment awareness is their CORRECTION IS AUTOMATIC. Classic case study of recent times is RAIN WATER HARVESTING(RWH) which was made mandatory in Tamilnadu state few years back, now when you go and ask any who is not aware of the RWH? Every one is aware the reason is each one of them have experienced the benefit and positive effects.
Coming to Air conditioning BEE has announced that effective Only minimum star labelled products only can be sold in the market. Here again still lot of people go for first cost in WAC or SAC which is not correct as the Operation cost is the maximum component and once they are made aware they will never go for first cost basis