Exploitation and optimal management of free cooling for industrial refrigeration

Abstract In recent years energy costs, operating efficiency and energy conservation are gaining increasing attention in the industrial sector in recent years. Under suitable locations and weather conditions, the free cooling (FC) technology exploits refrigeration from atmosphere without using chillers. The aim of this paper is to assess potential energy and cost savings in the generation of chilled water by using the FC option. The analysis is performed through an optimization tool able to minimize the energy required for a specified cooling load. The proposed procedure has been applied to a case study of an industrial plant in the northern Italy where two chillers, an absorption and an electric ones, are already present. After modeling FC operation, several chilled water generation configurations for reference conditions through one year have been evaluated and compared in terms of energy and cost saving. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis which correlates the free cooling capacity with the chilled water temperature is also presented.