Keeping Up With Technology Trends Imperative For Efficiency

With the growing woes of electricity costs in South Africa, engineering professional services consulting firm WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff believes that it is imperative to keep up with air-conditioning technology trends that promote energy efficiency and ease of maintenance.

- Marleny Arnold

WSP technical director Pieter de Bod points out that WSP has been using heat recovery technology in its air-conditioning systems to reduce running and capital costs.

“We use heat recovery technology as it provides a special configuration of heat exchange between various air-conditioning equipment to save on operating costs.”

Since 2004, De Bod has been using heat recovery wheels on most of his projects. He notes that the wheels have a honeycomb structure, with holes about 1 mm in diameter. They are coated with a heat-retentive material such as silica gel, which has micropores ranging from 3 to 100 Angstrom and high absorption capacity. It absorbs moisture and odour molecules because of its strong hydrophilic characteristics. This means that smaller electrical supplies are needed to provide power for the air conditioner.

Lately, WSP has been recommending trigeneration power plant technology, which involves a sophisticated air-conditioning system that is powered by natural gas.