Latest-technology air conditioning reduces carbon emissions

Replacing fixed-speed R22 air conditioning in a large office block in Manchester with Toshiba inverter-controlled R410A equipment is reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by 24 t a year — with energy cost savings of up to £14 000 a year. Rutherford House, formerly the design department of British Nuclear Fuels, has been refurbished by New Age Properties. The new air conditioning was installed by Toshiba accredited installer Andrews Air Conditioning. The projects qualified for the Enhanced Capital Allowance scheme, which enables the owner of the building to offset up to 30% of the total project cost in the first year to improve both cash flow and profitability. Brian Beetson, Toshiba’s area specification manager, explains, ‘Most of the buildings on the surrounding industrial estate either have no air conditioning or old, inefficient central-plant installations. This office-refurbishment programme is setting new standards for lettable, efficient business accommodation in the area.’ The open-plan floors typically have an area of 600 m2. Part of the building has three storeys, and part of it has five. Eight SHRM2 3-pipe VRF systems serve each floor of each part of the building so that they can be let individually. A Windows-based Toshiba control system covers each floor so that the landlord can provide individual control of each area but retain overall for billing purposes. The system can achieve a COP of 5 at the typical operating load of 40%. It requires just a 20 A power supply because it has automatic soft start. Brian Beetson says, ‘Altogether the system is providing almost 700 kW of heating and cooling to this large building. In the past, this might typically have been provided by water-based central plant, but today’s high-efficiency R410A VRF systems cope well with this challenge.’ The new systems are compact and were installed within the footprint of the existing plant village on the roof, so there were no structural complications from increasing the overall cooling and heating capacity for the building. Enquiry Number 000
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