QUANTUM chillers set standards: for a quantum of added efficiency
The QUANTUM chillers from ENGIE Refrigeration are famous around the world: for almost 20 years, both the air-cooled and the water-cooled models have continued to set new benchmarks on the international refrigeration market. The secret of their success? It’s quite simple: ENGIE Refrigeration is constantly refining its QUANTUM chillers – and thus keeps achieving new benchmarks in terms of energy efficiency and sustainability.
At Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, in Barcelona’s financial district 22, at the Amadeus Data Processing data centre in Erding near Munich and at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg: chillers from the QUANTUM series from ENGIE Refrigeration are in operation all over the world. That is hardly surprising, as the QUANTUM offers an extremely wide performance range: the different series – from the air-cooled QUANTUM Air with a minimum refrigeration capacity of 250 kilowatts to the water-cooled QUANTUM P with a maximum refrigeration capacity of eight megawatts – provide a perfect solution for every refrigeration situation and can be customised to suit individual customer requirements. But one thing always remains the same: all operating companies and end customers benefit from the excellent energy efficiency that characterises all QUANTUM chillers.
QUANTUM Air: Power meets Eco Friendliness
The different QUANTUM models are designed to meet the specific requirements of different areas of application. The characteristics of the air-cooled QUANTUM, for example, make it a particularly good choice for automotive manufacturers and suppliers, for the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industry, for industrial production and for data centres. After a complete overhaul in the summer of 2019, the 28 versions of the QUANTUM Air series feature a convenient control system, excellent serviceability, superlative refrigeration capacity and maximum efficiency. ENGIE Refrigeration has achieved this efficiency through generously dimensioned condensers and evaporators, and through intelligent wiring of the various components, which provides even better control and regulation options. As a result, the total energy consumption of the QUANTUM Air chiller has been optimised at every point of operation. And this was exactly the focus of the redesign – after all, measures for improving energy efficiency play an important role in reducing carbon emissions and thus achieving greater sustainability in refrigeration. The specialists at ENGIE Refrigeration achieved this in exemplary fashion: thanks to its high energy efficiency, the QUANTUM Air reduces greenhouse gas emissions to such a level that the chillers in the series already exceed the future requirements of the Ecodesign Directive from 2021 (Tier 2), and have done for several months. The QUANTUM Air with free cooling is especially efficient: when you compare the power consumption of a QUANTUM chilled water set with and without free cooling modules, the integrated free cooling register can reduce power consumption by up to 40 per cent. This QUANTUM Air chiller therefore provides maximum energy efficiency at any ambient temperature – while reducing costs to a minimum.
The chiller for more efficiency and more sustainability
Moreover, the chosen refrigerant plays an important role in the sustainability of a chiller. A total of 14 models in the QUANTUM AIR series use the eco-friendly refrigerant R-1234z. This refrigerant has a GWP (global warming potential) of less than 1 and is not limited by the EU F-gas Regulation. R-1234z has an ODP value of 0; this means it has no negative impact on the ozone layer. In addition, the QUANTUM Air is available with heat recovery as an option – a feature that is especially interesting for industrial enterprises, data centres, hospitals and hotels. It allows customers to reuse up to 100 per cent of the waste heat generated during the cold generation process – to heat production halls or provide hot water to offices, for example. Operating companies thus conserve resources while also improving their energy efficiency.
Water-cooled QUANTUM: reducing carbon emissions at full speed
For customers who prefer their re-cooling to utilise water rather than air, ENGIE Refrigeration offers water-cooled QUANTUM chillers that meet the most stringent performance, reliability and efficiency requirements and provide a good environmental balance. ENGIE Refrigeration has been offering the water-cooled QUANTUM chillers with optional heat recovery for many years, for example. Similarly, the water-cooled QUANTUM models are operated with the refrigerants R-134a, R-513A or R-1234ze, depending on the version. In fact, the specialists at ENGIE have installed the world’s largest chiller park with the water-cooled QUANTUM at a major hospital in Sydney: with a refrigeration capacity of 6.2 megawatts, this system runs on the eco-friendly refrigerant R-1234ze. A water-cooled QUANTUM with a refrigeration capacity of 2.5 megawatts and running on R-1234ze has recently started cooling the production halls of a major German manufacturer of e-bike systems – green refrigeration for a green means of transport, as it were. In short: the water-cooled QUANTUM now meets the highest economic and ecological requirements at industrial companies and in district cooling networks around the world. In the process, the QUANTUM chillers from ENGIE Refrigeration always provide a quantum of added efficiency – and assist the companies operating the chillers on their path towards carbon neutrality.
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