The heat output of Capstone MicroTurbines can be used to both heat and air condition a healthcare facility via absorption cooling, says Turner EPS, official UK distributor for Capstone Turbine Corporation.
The company says that, in summer months, users’ energy bills ‘can more than triple’ due to higher peak power rates and increased power usage due to air conditioning. “However,” it explained, “Capstone systems can optionally chill water or water/ glycol with absorption coolers, which use heat energy, instead of electric energy, to create air conditioning. This sounds counter-intuitive, but absorption chilling has been used for decades at tens of thousands of buildings.
“Most absorption chillers burn natural gas to create heat that drives the process, but today quite a few buildings use the ‘waste’ heat from their microturbines to create both building heating and cooling. This is trigeneration, or CCHP – combined cooling, heating, and power.”
