Tecnofreddo S.r.l. has realized a tailor-made system for heating and cooling a care centre: a cutting-edge idea that represents architectural innovation, environmental wellbeing and sustainability.

Efficiency and hospitality in buildings

Completed before the end of 2017, the care center is situated in Uggdal city center in Tysnes. The care center is a new construction with an area of 5.200 m2; it accommodates 30 nursing and 10 care homes. Other commodities, offices, meeting rooms and technical rooms are also present in the building. Tecnofreddo’s client required an innovative energy-efficient solution (energy class B) which could comply with the city development plan called Integrated Development and Implementation (Design-Build).

The building has a modern and practical kitchen, and it is equipped with an innovative patient alert system in order to make everyday living to future residents and employees as simple as possible.  Among other things, in order to keep the building’s operating costs down and reduce climate emissions, the building uses the water drill heat for heating and is facilitated for future connection on the district heating network. In addition, one of the sustainability aspects applied to this new construction project consisted on heat recovery and the use of natural refrigerants for the cooling/heating of the care centre.

A tailor-made project to increase performance

For the Norwegian care centre, Tecnofreddo.r.l. has developed a completely customized system able to take full advantage of the natural resources of the territory, achieve the objectives in terms of energy efficiency and ensure excellent long-term performance. The Italian company has therefore provided a system that combines, in one single solution, a water cooled liquid cooler and reversible heat pump, employing ammonia as a natural refrigerant.

Chiller and reversible heat pump provide a system of 120 kW to cool water at a temperature of +10°C (unit in “cooling mode”). In “heating mode” the unit provides 80 kW to heat water at +40 °C. The ammonia chiller/heat pump included also variable speed drive (VSD) and a programmable logic controller (PLC), designed and realized by TECNOFREDDO. The system, designed with open-type reciprocating compressors, has a very compact design and low charge of ammonia. Every detail has been implemented to maximize energy savings and efficiency, and improve compressor life cycles.