Absorption Chillers - Answers to Common Questions - Antares Group Inc.

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Absorption Chillers Answers to Common

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FEBRUARY 17, 2014 BY SARA AASERUD 5 COMMENTS

OK, so our first post on this topic How to Decide if an Absorption Chiller is Right for
You was really popular. If you havent seen it yet, then you can check it out here. It SUBSCRIBE
looks like a lot of you are interested in seeing if absorption chillers will help you reduce
your overall energy consumption. Congratulations on asking a very good question!
Below is follow-up post that takes a closer look at some of the key things that people
keep asking me about absorption chillers.
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Type of Heat Needed for Absorption Chillers
Unfortunately, you cant use just ANY type of waste heat to run an absorption chiller
(emphasis placed on the waste part if youre looking to make this project economical
see the first blog post we did on this here for clarification). If you could, then Id be
harvesting my dogs hot breath to cool our house during the summer. Absorption chillers
are meant to operate specifically with a given heat source: hot water at a temperature of
200F or saturated steam at a pressure of at least 10-20 psig. These heat source ENERGY TOPICS
requirements will vary depending on the make and model of absorption chiller that you
select for your project, but these are a reasonable starting place for your review. The Alternative Fuel Vehicles
following table provides some additional data that will be helpful: Announcements
Biomass Energy
Hot Water (F) Steam (psig)
Energy Efficiency
Single Effect Absorption Chiller 185-200F 10-20 psig Energy Policy
Double Effect Absorption Chiller 360-400F 40-120 psig Geothermal Energy

Source: https://www.cedengineering.com/upload/Vapor%20Absorption%20Machines.pdf Greenhouse Gases

Monthly Roundup
If you dont have the minimum heat thats typically required, you may be able to use what Press Release
youve got. However, it will likely lower your operating efficiency and reduce the cooling Smart Grid
capacity of your chiller. Solar Energy
Uncategorized
Alternatively, if your waste heat is hotter, or at a greater pressure than what your
Wind Energy
absorption chiller needs, then congratulations! Its usually relatively easy to step it down
to the required pressure or temperature. It looks like youre ready to go.

Sizing Absorption Chillers

This can be a tricky issue. Please, please, please get an expert involved before you
finalize any equipment selections and make any equipment purchases! If you want to put
together a quick estimate of potentially how much cooling you could do, there are two
numbers that you need to figure out:

#1 How much cooling can you do with your waste heat? First, if youre using a
waste heat source to supply your chiller, youll need to calculate the maximum cooling
load that your waste heat can supply. If youre using a natural gas-powered absorption
chiller, this is kind of a moot point. Feel free to move on to #2 below.

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Take your waste heat transfer rate (in MMBtu/hr) and multiply it by your chillers COP
(coefficient of performance) to obtain the amount of cooling energy that your waste heat
can supply.

COP= (Cooling Energy OUT (MMBtu/hr))/(Heating Energy IN (MMBtu/hr) )

Cooling Energy OUT (MMBtu/hr)=COPHeating Energy IN (MMBtu/hr)

A typical single-effect absorption chiller will have a COP of 0.7, whereas a typical double
-effect chiller will have a COP of 1.0. Youll probably need to do some unit conversions to
get it into the form that you want. FYI: 1 ton = 12,000 Btu, and 1 MMBtu = 83.3 tons.

#2 How much cooling do you need? This could end up being more or less than what
you calculated in #1. If youre constructing a new building, your head engineer should
have a model showing what your estimated peak cooling load is. If youre replacing an
existing chiller, then you might be able to use your existing chillers cooling capacity as a
good starting point, assuming that the existing units are right-sized for your application.
Your facility maintenance crew should have a good idea whether or not your chillers are
under- or overloaded throughout the year.

If you need less heat than your theoretical absorption chiller has the ability to produce
(#2 < #1), then you should be OK. If you need more cooling than what your waste heat
can reasonably supply, then you will need to ask yourself some questions:

Do you want to produce additional heat to meet your required cooling load? This
might make the whole idea of absorption chilling less economical.
Do you want to install a smaller additional electric chiller to meet your peak cooling
loads? Then youll have to install two different types of chillers.

These two numbers cooling load and waste heat supply are only two pieces of the
chiller-sizing puzzle. Whatever your situation, keep in mind:

Peak loads may not be typical loads. You dont want to size a chiller to a once-in-a-
blue-moon peak load, then be stuck with it operating at 5 or 10% capacity for the
other 364.9 days of the year. You may need multiple chillers so that you can meet
peak loads but also operate efficiently at average loads.
Its all about overlap. Peak waste heat loads and peak cooling loads probably dont
happen at the same time. (Lucky you if they do!) If either the waste heat source or
the cooling load swing a lot, you could quickly end up in a situation where an
absorption chiller wont be able to cover all or much of your cooling load.
It pays to know your load profile. You may have a SCADA system full of data about
your cooling load and your waste heat sourceor you may have to find a flowmeter
and temperature probes and do some data logging. Either way, get that data. Learn
how your load changes from hour to hour, day to day, and season to season. It can
help you wrestle with the overlap issue I pointed out above, and help you
understand how heavily loaded a given size chiller would be.

Capital Cost
So many people asked about the capital cost of an absorption chiller! First off, we (as a
company) dont sell chillers, and we dont regularly work with any companies who do. If
you want a specific quote beyond what is given here, youll need to go to a reputable
chiller distributor.

Below are some ranges in capital costs for select absorption chillers. This is for the
chiller capital cost and installation only, and does not include any miscellaneous
costs that may be associated with the installation of a chiller, such as valves, piping,
gauges, owners costs (including design), etc. These are meant to be guidelines only,
and are not a substitute for quotes from actual equipment vendors.

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Single-Effect HW or Steam Double-Effect HW or Steam Gas-Fired

Tons
($/ton) ($/ton) ($/ton)

100-400 $1,110 $1,970 $950

400-800 $820 $1,470 $820
800-1,200 $730 $1,300 $840
1,200-
$680 $1,220
1,600

Moving Forward
If you are serious about installing an absorption chiller, then I highly suggest conducting
a feasibility study first to determine if its economically advantageous for your
circumstances. Spending a few thousand dollars on an upfront study could save you
from a huge mistake later on that costs you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Want to take the plunge? Give me a call to set up a feasibility study today. We offer
budget friendly pre-feasibility studies that can really help you get off to a great start.

About Sara Aaserud

Sara works as a Renewable Energy Engineer in ANTARES Fayetteville,

NY office. Her favorite types of projects are solar PV feasibility studies and
electricity rate tariff analyses. She can be reached at
saaserud@antaresgroupinc.com.
View all posts by Sara Aaserud

FILED UNDER: ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Comments
Deodato S. Gaviola says:
March 18, 2014 at 4:58 am

Ms. Sara..concise but full of substance. Good Job!

REPLY

Diane Wood says:

July 3, 2014 at 5:00 pm

Thought you might like to include another type of chiller to the table above
that shows 2 types of chillers, hot water and steam, as there is also an exhaust fired
chiller that utilize the exhaust from microturbines. They are very common in
microturbine CCHP applications. Thanks!

REPLY

Solaris says:
July 29, 2014 at 9:24 pm

This is very well written and provides information that would be vital for a
consumer to read before purchasing! Great job, I learned a lot from this article and
will be sure to refer to once my company begins selling these systems.

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REPLY

Sam Tam says:

May 31, 2015 at 6:12 pm

Hi,
Thank you for the useful article. I needed this information a lot. I have 2 questions:
1. For the cost estimates provided above, is there a specific resource/website/book I
can refer to?
2. Do you have any additional cost estimates for the supporting systems for solar
absorption chillers (like cost/m2 of advanced flat plate collectors, cost/ton for cooling
towers, cost of pumps, valves etc)?

The reason Im looking for this information is that Im doing a feasibility study for solar
powered absorption chillers. Any related data would be of great use.

Thank you,
Sam

REPLY

Sara Aaserud says:

June 1, 2015 at 8:53 am

Hi Sam,

RS Means is a good resource for cost data, but you have to pay for a subscription.
If you know exactly what you want, you can try going straight to a chiller or
mechanical equipment vendor and they should also be able to help you out.

Good luck!

-Sara

REPLY

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