Recover the heat for a greener future

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While it is recognised that to address the problem of climate change, a reduction in fossil fuels is needed, there are also financial benefits to upgrading the efficiency of industrial equipment, as substantial savings can be made.

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Khan says that there is a move from window to split cooling systems.

A growing maturity in the air conditioning market is producing a number of distinct trends. Far from being a stagnant sector, experts within the industry are suggesting that a growing sense of awareness of environmental implications is driving demand for newer cooling technology, and the phasing out of dated models.

Reem Al Ghussein, marketing specialist, Trane Middle East, says: "Clearly, demand for air conditioning systems is closely linked to the new construction market and, as such, growing strongly. Less noticed is the growing demand from owners of existing facilities to seek professional assistance in the operation and upgrading of older, less energy-efficient systems."

Although there has been massive interest in central chilled-water plants and district cooling, Al Ghussein says that this move towards higher quality individual systems can deliver optimum usage as the designer intended. "This is not always achieved when installers source different elements from different suppliers," he adds.

And this is linked with the perceived demand for systems that are able to match people's environmental expectations.

"We have seen interest in sustainability for quite some time now, but it has sometimes been difficult to convince owners to focus on something other than cost." However, Al Ghussein believes the market is maturing and is confident that more developers will take long-term operating costs more seriously than has been evident in the past. "We welcome this change, as it enables us to provide systems that may result in a slightly higher initial investment, but rapidly deliver significant cost savings."

Technologically, heat recovery is one of the key areas that companies such as Trane are looking at to make buildings more energy efficient, comfortable and productive. At the end of March the company held a workshop, which was attended by 60 engineers and designers. This focused on how to make buildings more productive and ensure accurate operating conditions in industrial processes, using heat recovery chiller applications.

Although heat recovery technology has existed for decades, its applications could be more successful, with a better understanding of technical and economic factors, and availability of appropriate tools. Ilse Dubois, senior applications engineer, Trane, explains that while it is understandable that firms are not concerned with heat recovery, it is a lost opportunity to simply dump ‘waste' heat outside the building, which can be captured and used for a wide range of applications, typically for heating water.

Al Ghussein believes that this could be solved through a departure from older regulations, and the sector would be better served by considering more recent findings.

"The market is still largely fixated with the Montreal Protocol, with its focus on ozone depletion and CFC refrigerants, but a lot has happened since then. The Kyoto protocol, for example, started to address global warming, which is now widely accepted as being the next big challenge." The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete The Ozone Layer is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of a number of substances believed to be responsible for ozone depletion. It was signed in September 1987 and came into force in January 1989.

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