The required thermal load in most air conditioning installations is variable due to the fact that the load of insolation and the occupation of environments are also variable, so that the investment in thermo accumulation begins to be amortized immediately after the installation of the system, because the thermo accumulation allows a reduction of the installed air conditioning power as, different from a conventional installation, the capacity of the system does not have to be based on the time of higher thermal load.

This way it allows the installation of smaller capacity and cheaper equipment which, at rush hours, count on the addition of thermal energy accumulated in another time. It avoids that they get inactive most of the time and reduces the size and cost of substations and the contracted demand of electricity.

Iced Water Tank

It is the most simple and efficient thermal storage. During the period in which the thermal load is reduced or in which the facility is not being used, the chillers are turned on to store iced water in thermally insulated reservoirs.

The reservoirs can be built or in steel plate or in concrete, and are made with several interconnected chambers using the technique called "labyrinth" or even in unicellular tanks of stratified type that reduce the losses by mixing and transmission, increasing their efficiency.

The iced water tank has two main limitations:

1. The volume – it is higher the solution of accumulation with ice in determined works where there is no available space or the space has high commercial value.
2. The pressure – for elevated pressures the tank becomes economically unavailable and it restricts the application for smaller buildings.



Ice tanks

The ice tanks, unlike the tanks of iced water, need two distinct cycles:

1.Cycle of cargo or production of ice, in which the ice is formed inside the tanks.
2.Cycle of discharge or burning in which the previously accumulated ice is consumed

There are different types of tanks with different conceptions of ice accumulation. The main suppliers of these tanks are: Alpine, Semco-Bac and Criogel.

In thermo accumulation of ice systems it is necessary the introduction of water in the circuit of iced water of a substance, usually ethylene glycol or propylene glycol, whose primary function is to lower the freezing point of water allowing the ice formation in the tanks. This mix will circulate through the chiller and the fan coils.

In the cycle of consumption or burning, the solution of water and ethylene glycol is cooled when it passes through the tanks, leaving the tank at a temperature of around 2° C, being mixed with a solution from the chiller at a higher temperature and sent back to air conditioners at a temperature around 5 to 7° C.

Tuma Companies that provide those products and services:

TUMA Instalações
TUMA Rio
Meta Medeiros