The purpose of HVAC systems is not just providing buildings with the level of comfort required by different situations, but are also used in industrial settings or laboratories, as part of the manufacturing process in different sectors – from petrochemical, pharmaceutical and IT sectors to the food and beverage sector – providing industrial facilities and laboratories with the cooling or the heating that might be needed for a given process or activity.
Therefore, data centers, pharmaceutical industrial plants, chemicals industrial plants, refineries, distilleries and many other facilities, require HVAC systems to provide cooling and/or heating with great precision.
That says how important HVAC systems are for certain facilities were strict temperature and humidity control is necessary to ensure the quality of a product, the safety in facilities were certain industrial processes are performed, or simply the reliability of equipment used.
As a market leader in the Air Conditioning sector, Daikin is well-aware of the needs in process application projects and has proven it supplying solutions for projects involving different business sectors and facilities all over the world, being preferred for the advanced technology offered, its reliability, and its outstanding energy efficiency:
Choosing the right technology to meet the needs of the facility
Process applications clearly need extremely reliable machines, so the system can be able to provide the required cooling, heating, or ventilation, with great precision, to perfectly meet the needs of the process.
So, whether the HVAC system is required to provide cooling, heating, or ventilation only, it needs to be properly sized, offering the cooling and/or heating capacity, plus the airflow range that makes sense for the size of the facility and the demand of the process equipment. Finally, HVAC systems must incorporate machines that can ensure high energy efficiency, as that of operative costs is an important topic for any business.
Daikin Single Screw Inverter technology usually makes the difference, ensuring high efficiency chillers and heat pumps both at full and partial loads. Inverter technology is particularly suitable for applications where precise temperature control is needed. In fact, inverter is a key technology when it comes to adapting chiller’s performance to the temperature demand, ensuring the maximum efficiency of the plant.
Indoor Air Quality
Process application are not necessarily just about cooling or heating but might require air filtration systems able to address indoor air quality issues generated by industrial processes. That might be the case of oil & gas industrial plants, for instance.
That kind of facilities can be very harsh environments for workers, and it is necessary to take actions to provide a safe environment for plant personnel. That means there is a need for high quality air filtration to avoid safety risks for workers, and that needs to be provided choosing air handling units featuring the highest filtration levels and the proper air-exchange rate for the size of the indoor environment that needs to be treated.
Click here to know more about what Daikin can do to improve indoor air quality
Load variation
Load variation is a very relevant topic for any process applications. Some of them might require the HVAC system to deal with different loads based on the workload the facility has to bear. That might can be the case of data centers, for instance, where HVAC systems, to operate as efficiently as possible, might be required to match the load variation generated by the different workloads servers have to bear in different moments of the day.
Other process applications needing cooling or heating for industrial or medical equipment, might be characterized for requiring constant loads during the year. That does not mean the chiller will operate in the same conditions throughout the whole year, though. In fact, to ensure that the load request in a food process application – for instance – is always satisfied, the chiller is designed to provide the proper cooling capacity in the worst operating condition for the specific climate region (design conditions). But while the load request is constant during the year, the ambient temperature is not always the same during the year or even during the day.
So, the chiller will have to be able to provide the needed capacity at design condition, but for most of the year will operate at different (more favourable) outdoor ambient temperature conditions than those specified as design conditions. This will require the chiller to operate at part load during most of the time. That is exactly why inverter technology needs to be considered.
Read here about the benefit of using Daikin inverter technology
Reliability
Reliability of the HVAC system, then, is typically an aspect that needs to be considered, as breakdowns and downtime of the HVAC system can affect the productivity of an industrial plant, of a data center, but also the services that a hospital needs to provide.
HVAC systems designed for process applications have an important role as will serve facilities and businesses that need to make sure their product, service, or activity, is up to the standards that markets and legislations demand. For this reason, it is important to choose technology that stands out for proven reliability when designing a HVAC system for process applications.
Read here about how Daikin provides with proven reliability HVAC systems serving CERN’s laboratories
Monitoring
Monitoring units’ performance is necessary to guarantee the best performance and the reliability of the units in the HVAC system. It helps reducing costs and making the whole system energy efficient and reliable. In fact, monitoring not only allows to implement efficiency strategies based on the observation of real data, but also allows the planning of preventive maintenance.
To prevent breakdowns and maintenance issues Daikin can provide customers with a remote monitoring system such as Daikin on Site.
Daikin on Site is the unique solution for remote monitoring and smart maintenance, successfully used worldwide to support customers during the entire product lifecycle. It ensures a complete remote operation of any unit, is fully compatible with all Daikin Applied Europe products and it can integrate third-party products like IoT devices (i.e. IAQ sensors).
The use of Daikin on Site is normally included in maintenance packages for the customer’s peace of mind. It is a tool for predictive maintenance, which is key for the pharmaceutical sector as downtimes or issues with the storage cooling systems can negatively impact the business.
To top that off, Daikin on Site also allows creating periodical reports of the system performance or energy audits, which help keeping the system as efficient as possible.
Read more here about how digital tools for HVAC monitoring are becoming crucial
Would you be interested in visiting the Daikin factories where all the mentioned technologies are designed and manufactured? Then, get in touch here.