Turbomiser chillers halve cooling costs
Two Turbomiser chillers with Turbocor compressors installed to replace aging units running on R22 and the interim refrigerant R79 have halved energy consumption and expected to give a payback for the project of less than two years, helped by there being a fairly constant process load. They were installed by Cool-Therm at Photronics’ high-tech production facility at Bridgend. Photronics is a world leader in the production of specialist components for supplying to manufacturers of semiconductor and flat-panel displays.
The chillers are each rated at 300 kW of cooling and supply clean rooms and cooling water for manufacturing lasers that cut masks and reticles (very fine optical etching) for high-quality imaging screens.
Patrick Silman, head of the process facilities at Photronics, said, ‘We are monitoring energy use carefully and are on schedule to save some £170 000 within two years on power costs alone.
‘The machines are also incredibly quiet. I sometimes have to go and physically check that they are actually running.’
David Blackmore, who headed the project for Cool-Therm, said, It is an interesting, high-tech process application. The installation was carried out at ground level and completed without too many complications. There was a requirement to adjust the water flow to optimise performance, which was accomplished by updating the pipework and valve configuration.
‘We believe Turbomiser has great potential for application across a range of process industries.’
