What is a heat recovery unit and how it works

Heat recovery unit

Heat recovery chiller units are a kind of dual-temperature chiller unit that is able to produce chilled water for cooling and hot water for various purposes at the same time. The heat absorbed by the condenser water doesn't get wasted at cooling towers. Instead, it is used to produce hot water. So it causes fewer energy losses, almost like a recycling process but in a different way. 

Heat recovery chillers are also known as heat reclaim chillers which really defines its name. Heat recovery chillers are mostly water-cooled type and their compressors are screw-type.

Heat recovery is available for both air-cooled and water-cooled chillers. Usually, heat recovery chillers are bigger in physical size because they have an additional condenser (shell-and-tube heat exchanger) for the heat recovery process.

Standard heat recovery is 15% of the cooling capacity and the maximum can be 50%. Many heat recovery chillers are able to harvest the heat from their condenser and produce hot water at around 60°C which is the standard hot water storage temperature it can reach more temperature if customized, Kaydeli also supports customizing. 

In additional function, heat recovery chillers can operate more efficiently than standard centrifugal chillers. Some heat recovery chillers claim to have an efficiency of as low as 0.48 kW/ton or less. However, they don't seem to beat magnetic-bearing chillers now.

In a typical chilled water system, out of 5 chillers, only one chiller has the heat recovery function most of the time because the hot water demand is not as high as the demand for cooling. However, it is still depending on the applications. It also has a wide range of applications like hotels, hospitals, factories, large kitchens, and other water-demanding palaces. 

Nevertheless, heat recovery chillers do reuse heat that otherwise will be wasted to produce good hot water. Hence, they are considered green technology in HVAC.

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