United Kingdom: Lincoln University has upgraded to a Daikin R32 based VRV5 heat recovery air conditioning system for its administration and service building on campus.
There are three administrative departments in the building – one on the ground floor and two upstairs – mostly in open-plan offices, but with some separate areas. A non-air-conditioned laundry occupies part of the ground floor. The open plan office space is served by Daikin Roundflow cassettes in four capacities sized to match the size of the space and capacity. Two small offices have fully flat cassettes, and a conference room and another small office have wall mounted units.
The total load of 33.5 kW is served through one distribution box installed in the communications room on the ground floor at the rear of the building.
The outdoor unit consists of an 8 HP main unit. and a secondary unit with a power of 5 hp. This arrangement provides more economical operating costs, since the secondary unit operates only during periods of peak demand for cooling or heating.
The new system was installed within three weeks during the university’s summer break by Hull-based Airco Refrigeration and Air Conditioning.
“Earlier, we were asked to conduct a building survey to replace the R410A system, which is 15 years old. We were asked about the possibility of using the R32 system,” said Airco contract manager Rob Murray.
University CTO Jason Devlin, himself an experienced refrigeration and heating engineer, said: “I wanted the building to be future-proof, not just replacing the system with another R410A system. “Some students may be afraid of the climate, so it’s important for us as a real estate department to show that we care about the environment and that we install the most energy efficient equipment we can get.”
The old part was in the area next to the building, but this place was not considered suitable because it was surrounded by trees.
“Placing new ones in a larger area with more airflow and fewer trees is much more profitable. And since we didn’t have to dig the ground, the setup is better,” Devlin added.
Daikin VAM ventilation units with heat recovery were also installed. They are designed for a capacity of 350 m 3 /h with a sound power of only 51 dB.
The indoor units are individually controlled by the Daikin White Madoka wired controllers, while the overall system control is through the Daikin Intelligent Touch Manager and BACnet gateway.
Daikin VRV5 systems also use Shirudo technology to ensure the safe use of refrigerants. Its junction boxes, which allow the 3-pipe DX system to simultaneously provide heating and cooling to various branches, have been specially designed for the R32 and feature automatic shut-off valves for each branch to prevent loss of refrigerant.
https://www.coolingpost.com/features/university-graduates-to-r32/