Deep Water Source Cooling

An Untapped Resource

This paper was presented at the 10th Annual District Cooling Conference of the International District Energy Association.

Authors:

Hazen E. Burford
Les Wiedemann
Nova-Industra, Inc.
Los Angeles, California

W.S. (Lanny) Joyce, P.E.
Robert E. McCabe, P.E.
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

Abstract:

Deep water source cooling (DWSC) refers to the renewable use of a large body of naturally cold water as a heat sink for process and comfort space cooling. Water at a constant 40 - 50° F or less is withdrawn from deep areas within lakes, oceans, aquifers and rivers and is pumped through the primary side of a heat exchanger. On the secondary side, clean chilled water is produced with one tenth the average energy required by conventional, chiller based systems. Coincident with significant energy and operating cost savings, DWSC offers reductions in air-borne pollutants and the release of environmentally harmful refrigerants. This paper discusses the basic design concepts, environmental considerations and performance related to the application of lake and ocean DWSC svstems.

Introduction

Deep water source cooling (DWSC) refers to the use of a renewable, large body of naturally cold water as a heat sink for process and comfort space cooling. Adequate cold water can be found in deep lakes, oceans, aquifers and rivers. The basic concept behind DWSC is to use naturally occurring cold water to produce chilled water to be used for building comfort cooling as an alternative to using energy intensive air conditioning equipment. This paper will focus on lake and ocean based DWSC and addresses the application of available equipment, materials and construction techniques to systems that can utilize this abundant and renewable resource. It will address the properties of potential sources of cold water, design concepts, environmental considerations and performance for a typical DWSC system. This paper will reference specific case studies for proposed and operational facilities and will focus on a specific DWSC study being developed for Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Contents

HTML by Morris A. Pierce
29 March 1996