Carrier paves the way for Gatwick Airport’s carbon neutral future
Carrier has recently installed its latest chiller at Gatwick Airport, helping the building on its way to reaching carbon neutral status. The project is part of a major upgrade at Jubilee House, the administrative offices at Gatwick Airport. Carrier’s new ultra-low global warming potential (GWP) AquaForce 30XAV chiller, is a replacement for an ageing air-cooled screw chiller and operates on the company’s Puretec HFO R-1234ze refrigerant.
Carrier’s chiller with its proprietary Greenspeed Intelligence was selected as a solution to help meet the airport’s strict environmental policy, set out in its Decade of Change vision and Cooling Strategy beyond 2020 reports. The policy includes goals to transition away from high GWP refrigerants and set targets to reduce carbon emissions by 50%; energy consumption by 20;, and securing 25% of its energy from renewable sources.
The chiller uses refrigerant R-1234ze with a GWP rating of less than 1, has low sound output and high resilience due to its dual refrigeration circuit. Carrier’s Greenspeed Intelligence system delivers high efficiency by precisely matching cooling output with the load using a fine-control inverter. This optimises efficiency particularly at part load conditions, which represents the majority of the time in the UK. The chiller’s efficiency results in a significantly lower carbon footprint and lower running costs over its operational lifetime.
Jack Hartland, principal mechanical engineer at Gatwick Airport, says: “We have set ambitious targets for the environmental performance of all aspects of Gatwick’s operations, and the energy efficiency and carbon status of our buildings are key elements. Based on ultra-low GWP refrigerant R-1234ze, the new Carrier chiller delivers in relation to both efficiency and carbon and has helped us achieve the outstanding environmental performance our strategy requires.”
The chiller is designed for flexibility in such replacement projects, with a compact footprint and variable configurations of water pipework that can be matched to existing connections. At Gatwick, the built-in chiller control interface was linked into the building management system, giving high-level control and helping to minimise energy consumption.
The chiller was installed by SPIE UK, which carried out the crane lift and chiller replacement at night due to ongoing activities within the building and surrounding busy airport during the day. The chiller is protected by Carrier’s Super Enviro-Shield condenser coating and includes a five-year extended warranty.
