Central Cooling

Central Cooling is a growing field combining certain characteristics of comfort cooling, or air conditioning, and industrial refrigeration, and typically involves complexes, multiple buildings, and/or campuses. Furthermore, Central Cooling systems are often tied into sophisticated energy management strategies.

Central Cooling:  FES Systems supplied the compressor for the ice thermal storage system in the Far Eastern Plaza in Taipei, Taiwan (Pictured left).

Like traditional large building air conditioning systems, chilled water is produced and distributed from the chillers to fulfill individual load requirements at remote air handlers. In Central Cooling systems, however, the distribution typically extends to remote buildings, often more than a mile away from the "chiller plant."

District Cooling is one significant segment within the Central Cooling field. Here, the distribution is made to tenants within a "district" who purchase the chilled water under contract from a provider which designs, constructs, and operates the chilled water plant and distribution systems.

Energy management plays a key role in Central Cooling, as the large capacity chiller plant is designed to coordinate, facilitate, and optimize the utility rate structures and demand profiles of the users and providers.  Often, cost effective strategies such as Thermal Storage and Heat Recovery are incorporated into the chiller plant scope.