Evaporative cooling boost for Delhaize

ITALY: Carel’s ChillBooster evaporative cooling system is providing an energy efficiency boost in more than 100 Delhaize supermarkets across Belgium.

ChillBooster is an adiabatic atomiser that uses evaporative cooling to cool the air before it is used by the condensing units such as chillers or dry coolers. According to Carel, this can bring reductions of around 10-15°C in condensing unit air inflow temperature in the summer.

During the summer of 2019, many of the refrigeration units in Delhaize stores were struggling to cope in the high summer temperatures. In addition to an overall decline in the performance of cold rooms and refrigerated showcases, the higher temperatures caused several units to shut down, with a consequent loss of the goods on display and, in some cases, forcing the stores to close for a few days. 

A ChillBooster system was subsequently installed on 120 gas coolers in supermarkets throughout Belgium. The flexibility of the Carel solution made it possible to adapt to the different needs of each of the more than 100 systems where ChillBooster was installed. The choice to adopt evaporative cooling has meant that the existing units meet the original design requirements again, saving energy and bringing an immediate benefit in terms of efficiency, says Carel.

ChillBooster essentially consists of a cabinet with pressurising pump and a system of nozzles mounted onto steel manifolds and arranged around the condensing unit. The atomisation occurs against the flow, so that the droplets, sucked in by the fan of the chiller, follow a longer route and have more time to evaporate. In this way, the air is cooled and the heat exchange of the battery is increased in depth. A part of the droplets will wet the flaps of the battery, absorbing the heat and then evaporating, thus increasing the heat exchange.