North Somerset Council

Background

North Somerset Council is the local authority of North Somerset. The client required the replacement of two existing units with a turn-key solution to be installed on the roof near the sea.

Purposes

The purpose of the project concerned the replacement of the existing chillers with new Turbomiser units. The existing chillers not only were approaching the end of their life but, with 569 kW of cooling capacity each, were also oversized for the current operation and occupancy of the building, resulting in high maintenance costs and poor control and reliability.

Project

For this project Geoclima, together with partner Cool-Therm, developed two Turbomiser TMA chillers, with 400 kW of cooling capacity each. The main challenge of this project concerned the replacement of the existing chillers with the new ones while maintaining continuity of cooling to the building. To this end, major work was completed out of office hours to minimise disruption on site. In addition to that, the placement of the units had to be particularly accurate as the new Turbomiser chillers were manufactured with connection positions designed for hook-up to the existing fixed on-site services.

Another important aspect that had to be considered was the location of the building near the sea front, with high winds and unpredictable conditions affecting roof-top working. Due to the risk of metal corrosion from onshore wind and salt-laden air, the heat exchange coils on the chillers were treated with heavy duty protective coating.

Results

The Turbomiser units turned out to be a very good solution for that kind of application, ensuring not only great performance but also remarkable benefits in terms of energy savings. Indeed, the Council reports savings for £1,000/week in energy running costs.