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Astor House, Newbury

Newbury office building pioneers Daikin R32 chillers 

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Plans to replace a pair of chillers at the core of climate control in a two-storey office building at Newbury, Berkshire, were revised to take advantage of a significant development in Daikin refrigerant technology. The change led to Astor House, in Newbury Business Park, becoming the first UK application of chillers with Daikin’s Bluevolution technology, based on R32 refrigerant. The industry-leading EWAT-B units replaced R407c chillers serving chilled water fan coil units and air handling units in the building.

Newbury office building pioneers Daikin R32 chillers

The new units were installed by Daikin D1 Partner Klimatec, which had upgraded a similar installation for a neighbouring building in the business park to Daikin R410A units before the R32 chillers became available. Klimatec director Adrian Griffi ths says: “The Astor House facilities manager, Mark Hogan of Orbit Property Management, and building services Contracts Manager, Aaron Lowe of Integral UK, were keen to accept our proposal and be the first to adopt the new technology – even though it meant delaying the replacement for a while when the existing chillers were literally on their last legs after nearly 20 years’ service.

“We will be monitoring the performance and the operating costs of the two systems – and we expect significant benefits from the R32 technology. The new technology appealed to us because of its increased energy efficiency and reduced refrigerant requirement. It was also an opportunity to future-proof Astor House because of the lower global warming potential of R32 in comparison with R410A.”

- Adrian Griffith, director at Klimatec 

First to market with R32-based chillers

Following its pioneering work with R32 refrigerant in air conditioning units, Daikin is the first to market with R32-based chillers. R32 has a global warming potential (GWP) of 675 – compared to the 2088 of R410A (of which R32 is a 50% constituent). The EWAT-B units – Daikin’s new generation of high efficiency aircooled scroll chillers – improve seasonal energy efficiency ratios (SEER) by 10% in comparison with the previous R-410A range. The new series is fully compatible with the Daikin on Site cloudbased platform, which offers a number of advanced remote monitoring functionalities, enabling system optimisation and preventive maintenance.

 

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