by Shane Henson — July 19, 2013—The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recently announced the availability of a new publication, District Cooling Guide, that provides design guidance for all major aspects of district cooling systems.
According to the organization, readers can expect guidance on central chiller plants, chilled-water distribution systems and consumer interconnection.
As ASHRAE explains, district cooling systems are commonly used to serve applications like cities, educational campuses, major medical facilities and other large building complexes. When properly planned and executed, these systems can offer many environmental, efficiency and economic advantages over other means of supplying heating and cooling services.
For district cooling systems to be successful, their components must be designed to function as a properly integrated system, adds the organization. In addition, owing to the large capital investments involved, such systems must have long lifetimes and they must be efficient and remain so over the long periods necessary to recover these substantial capital investments.
In addition to design guidance, the book contains a chapter dedicated to planning, with additional information on system enhancements and the integration of thermal storage into a district cooling system. Guidance on operations and maintenance, including several case studies, is also provided to help operators ensure that systems function as intended.
The book is a useful resource for both the inexperienced designer as well as those immersed in the industry, such as consulting engineers with campus specialization, utility engineers, district cooling system operating engineers, central plant design engineers and chilled-water system designers, says ASHRAE.
