Salt Water Air Conditioning

Corinthian Colleges, Inc |

Sea Water Air Conditioning

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An overview of Sea Water Air Conditioning |

Enrique Aguila

5/24/2011

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Sea Water Air Conditioning

The Basics

Sea Water Air Conditioning uses available deep sea water to replace central refrigeration systems. A system such as this can also use cold lake or river water as the cold source. The four main components are: the sea water supply system, the heat exchanger or cooling station, and the fresh water distribution system. These basic components can also be optimized for each specific location, climate, and building.

How Does It Work?

Sea Water Air Conditioning works almost internally the same as a regular A/C system. The difference is that Sea Water Air Conditioning does not use a chiller to cool the chilled water loop in this type of system. The low water temperatures in the chilled water loop are maintained by passing fresh water through a counter-flow heat exchanger with the primary fluid being deep cold sea water. The two fluids are on either side of titanium plates that transfer the heat from one fluid to another and do not mix. The seawater intake pipeline brings in water at a temperature lower than the temperature maintained in the chilled water loop. Once the seawater passes through the heat exchanger, it is returned to the ocean through another pipeline.

Environment Benefits

A SWAC (SeaWaterAirConditioning) system may have important environmental benefits which include: drastic reduction in electricity consumption which reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas production, and dependence on fossil fuels. SWAC substitutes simple heat exchangers for chiller machinery which often use ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Return water from a SWAC system can be handled in a number of ways. Usually it is returned to the ocean at a location where the return water temperature almost matches the ambient water. There are major secondary uses for this seawater: secondary cooling,...