Gas-powered chillers cool luxury development

UK: Fifty Robur gas-powered chillers are being employed to bring comfort cooling to residents of Embassy Gardens, a regenerative development at Nine Elms, London.

Embassy Gardens is a 17 acre site in the heart of Nine Elms in the Southbank regeneration area and comprises thousands of luxury homes, workspaces and amenities. It also incorporates the refurbishment of Battersea Power Station, New Covent Garden market and the US Embassy. Wrapped around these iconic landmarks, Ballymore Group is building commercial, retail and residential properties.

More than a 1MW of cooling was required for Phase 1 of the residential build of 510 riverside apartments. Faced with a shortage of electrical power and the cost of providing the necessary power, Robur’s gas-powered ammonia absorption chillers have been chosen. These are mounted on factory assembled skids of 90kW output, with 15-18 chillers on the roofs of each of the three apartment blocks.

The Robur units were selected by consultants OCSC on behalf of Ballymore Group, supplied by ESS and installed by Haydon Mechanical Services.

Kevin Pacey, md of ESS Ltd, said: “The Robur gas-powered absorption chillers provide a truly modular solution. The direct digital controls ensure shared workload and, in the event of a mechanical failure or service downtime, less than 7% of output is lost.”