The free cooling system by outside air, known as “freecooling”, is undoubtedly the leader in energy savings. It consists of using outside air instead of recirculating return air, as it has thermodynamic characteristics that make it more energy efficient than return air.
Throughout the year, different situations appear in which the use of outside air is more advantageous than recirculated air, so we can reduce energy consumption and improve the quality of the indoor air of the premises.
In the winter season, the main demands of buildings are usually heating, but there are premises that, due to their specific characteristics, such as shops, party rooms, restaurants, etc., have a high internal load, which is why they require cooling and if the conditions exteriors with the appropriate ones, make it more effective to use outside air to cool the premises than not having to operate a conventional mechanical compression cooling system.
Typical spaces in which the application of Free-Cooling is interesting are, for example:
- Internal areas of office buildings
- High occupancy premises (cinemas, theaters, auditoriums, etc.)
- Computer rooms, data processing center
- In general, areas of high internal load density throughout the year.
In addition to being more economical to use cold air from outside to dissipate internal loads, increasing the flow of outside air will lead to an improvement in indoor air quality (IAQ).
In the following image you can see how first thing in the morning [7:00] we started the heating system, in such a way that we reached the set temperature [21ºC] in less than an hour. The interior temperature continues to increase to values close to 25ºC due to the internal load [equipment, occupancy and lighting]. From 3:00 p.m. we could use the outside air, which is at about 12ºC, to cool the interior space and thus prevent overheating of the room.
