Airwatergreen presents a new model for humidity treatment in district heating chambers making them virtually maintenance-free

Airwatergreen presents a new model for humidity treatment in district heating chambers making them virtually maintenance-free. The model is expected to save district heating companies millions annually.

Each year district heating companies spend millions in repairing and refurbishing district heating chambers below city streets. The chambers, traditionally heavily beset by high humidity loads coming from rainfall, ground water and leaking pipes, often keep a high humidity level. This causes corrosion on pipes and equipment, but also cracked concrete walls and rapid bacterial growth in the chamber. The problem is well-known, but the high temperature in the chambers made it impossible to condense the moisture in them.

Now Airwatergreen presents an entirely new model for solving this problem once and for all.

In short, the model consists of sucking up the moisture and condensing it to water that is easily disposed of. In contrast to older technology that condensed moisture to water by using cold, Airwatergreen’s new technology “Heat Condensation” uses heat to do the same job. This makes it perfectly suited for working in the tough conditions that are common in the chambers.

The model, ”Dry Climate”, is specifically developed for the District Heating Industry. For a fixed fee a dry and maintenance-free climate in the chamber is guaranteed.

” There is no need to neither own any machines nor handle service, and the budget that was last year reserved for maintenance can now be re-invested elsewhere. Downtime on the networks is minimized and the personnel that was previously sent out to fix leakages save time. In addition, working environment conditions are significantly improved since the risk of bacterial growth disappears”, says Fredrik Tunberg, Head of Sales at Airwatergreen.

First in line to invest in the new model on a larger scale was the Swedish power company Kraftringen that installed 17 chambers in downtown Lund in Southern Sweden in March this year. Six months later, the chambers are healthier than ever before.

” Dry Climate has definitely simplified maintenance on our network. The chambers are now dry and the risk of corrosion damages is gone. In addition, we took care of a serious working environment problem when the risk of bacterial growth disappeared. We are very pleased.”, says Mats Lindholm, Head of Maintenance at Kraftringen.

Airwatergreen has developed Heat Condensation, a new technology that condenses moisture to water with the use of heat instead of cold, and where function and energy efficiency is constant in all temperatures. The technology was recently patented in the US, China and Russia, and has been called the Next Generation in Humidity Control. The technology has since developed further and is now ready to take the next step into the sorption cooling area.