Challenge
A prestigious sports stadium in Portugal was looking to replace its aging and frequently faulty boilers with a more reliable and sustainable solution offering energy efficiency and free heating. The stadium is home to one of Portugal’s top football clubs and lies at the heart of a large commercial centre which includes shops, restaurants, a cinema, health club, spa, offices and data centre.
Comfort cooling and heating is needed throughout the centre including heating of the health club swimming pool and cooling for the facility data centre. The customer also required the system to produce hot water at 80°C. The customer’s priority is to ensure the stadium is served by a robust and reliable system that provides free heating and reduced dependance on fossil fuels.
Solution
The existing four boilers at the stadium provide overall capacity of 1,500 kW. The local Trane Rental Services team carried out a comprehensive site survey using the Trane Chiller Plant Analyser (TCPA) software assessment tool. They determined that the required capacity with Trane equipment could be achieved using two RTSF 100 heat pumps. These would provide both cooling capacity and heating output and could be easily connected to the stadium’s heating and cooling circuit.
One of the specifics of the stadium’s installation is the requirement for cold and hot water simultaneously – so while the heat pumps are producing 420kW of cooling water, they are also able to provide 670 kW of free hot water.
The RTSF100 is designed to deliver very hot water in every condition through a wide operating map, with the right choice of refrigerant - R1234ze has a near-zero GWP.
The TCPA simulation demonstrated that the new system could achieve energy savings of up to €120,000 including 670 kW of free heating.
Results
The customer is trying rental first in order to determine its exact heating and cooling needs before making a capital expenditure. The “try before you buy” approach has already shown that, long term, the customer will be able to replace its four existing boilers with just three Trane heat pumps, one of which will serve as back-up.
