Diesel genset delivers ultra low cost cooling

FireChill is delighted to announce that today it has successfully directly attached one of its 17kW (5RT) absorption chillers to an IVECO diesel generating set and delivered ultra low cost cooling utilising the engine’s exhaust gases, using a specially designed heat recovery exchanger.

Simon Clothier, FireChill’s CEO commented “This is a truly momentous occasion and a landmark in our company’s history. We have now proven the ALT500 platform from which to launch our ultra low cost cooling proposition. The market for free cooling is enormous with millions of gensets already installed around the world, and many more added on a weekly basis, all potentially able to take advantage of this new technology. What makes the FireChill ALT position even stronger is its gas-fired integral dual mode capability which means round the clock cooling even when the genset is idle.

Simon Clothier continued, “It will be a few months before completion of field testing and certification. We also have a number of conversations to complete with the major genset manufacturers as we believe this will be of significant interest to them and their global distribution networks.  Early market indications are very encouraging indeed and we expect to have the ALT500 available for volume sales in Q2 2012.”

This technology breakthrough also paves the way for FireChill’s other significant developments; capturing waste heat from Capstone microturbines; solar cooling where the heat transfer will be delivered directly via the same technology platform, without the need for further intermediate components or processes. Further announcements in this area will follow in the New Year.

Initially the ALT500 will be coupled with gensets in the 50kW to 200kW range with capacity to deliver between 17.5kW (5RT), utilising a single ALT, and 70kW (20RT), via a number of MultiPack configurations.