Mitsubishi Electric - Heat Pump Case Studies

Air Source Heat Pump & Internet Based Control Case Studies

Landmark Restoration Benefits from Combined VRF

Fort Dunlop, Birmingham’s iconic listed building, visible to the thousands of commuters as they journey along the M6, has been transformed into modern offices and contemporary retail space; all of which will be benefiting from the latest heating and cooling technology from Mitsubishi Electric.

The landmark building, historically the location of the construction of spitfire planes during World War 2, was transformed by award winning property developer, Urban Splash, who had the challenge of bringing the building up to modern standards of comfort and technology without compromising the existing features and unique architecture.

The specification included over 120 Mitsubishi Electric water cooled WR2 systems making it the largest in the UK. The WR2 units meet the heating and cooling demands of the building utilising multi port BC controllers which enable the building to benefit from heat recovery, using waste energy generated from one part of the building during cooling, to be used to heat another area.

To keep the internal air fresh without wasting energy, the project also includes over 120 Lossnay heat recovery units, which recoup energy from outgoing air to heat or cool incoming fresh air.

The WR2 condensing units are ‘housed’ in internal plant rooms, of which there are four per floor, providing heating and cooling to each floor via a total of over 700 Mitsubishi Electric ducted fan coils.

To preserve the integrity of the original architecture, the internal floor was raised and the void below used as a pathway for concealing all of the air conditioning system’s distribution, electrical power and control cables. The combination ensures the highest total building efficiencies, as well as lower running costs and excellent CO2 emissions reductions.

Lossnay ventilation units working in conjunction with the water cooled systems provide effective ventilation and total heat recovery, ensuring a comfortable air temperature within each room.

With large numbers of air conditioning units, control is paramount in a building of this complexity and size and 24 Mitsubishi Electric G50A centralised controllers were installed per floor in addition to 180 wired remote zone controllers.

This allows Urban Splash and their tenants to closely monitor and control each individual unit within the system to match separate room requirements.

With the installation of what is the country’s largest installation of WR2 systems, Fort Dunlop has been converted into a building fit for modern use whilst ensuring that this prestigious building remains a central part of Birmingham’s heritage for years to come.

Hot Water & Cool Chefs in Hatfield Kitchen

Mitsubishi Electric has installed a VRF, water heating booster unit at its head office in Hatfield to provide a hot water supply to the building’s kitchen.

The office has an on-site restaurant that can seat 100 people and serves cooked meals 5 days a week. Employees and guests are offered breakfast every morning from 8am – 10:30am and lunch every afternoon from 12pm – 2pm. The kitchen therefore requires an almost constant hot water supply for a large portion of the working day.

The 12.5kW water heating unit is connected to a high efficiency VRF outdoor unit that provides cooling to the kitchen area via two ducted fan coils. The PWFY unit is able to utilise the heat energy recovered from this area to heat water in a highly efficient manner, providing the kitchen with a hot water supply.

An M2M IP/50 Maxi unit has been installed as a means of controlling and monitoring the system, allowing the tracking and logging of data such as the exact amount of water utilised by the kitchen on a daily basis, power consumption of the outdoor unit, power supplied to the PWFY unit and ambient temperatures among other variables.

The M2M unit also provides a perfect solution for system down time. If in the unlikely event there is an error at the PWFY unit, a signal would be sent to the M2M which would in turn give an error output signal. This would then switch on a back up immersion heater making sure that the kitchen’s hot water demand is satisfied at all times.

Monitoring of the system over a four month period showed an average COP of 5.36 reflecting a highly efficient system.

The PWFY air to water heating booster unit is able to satisfy the hot water demand required from the kitchen on a daily basis in a highly efficient manner, especially when benefiting from heat recovery. This in turn has shown an overall reduction in running costs and CO2 emissions enhancing Mitsubishi Electric’s positive attitude to global warming.

Hotel Achieves Massive Cut in Air Conditioning Energy Costs

A six-month trial has demonstrated that Mitsubishi Electric’s specialist Melcotel™ controller has delivered a 40% energy reduction for the air conditioning at Premier Inn’s new city centre site in Leicester.

The hotel’s 135 bedrooms used an average consumption of 17.20kWh a day throughout the 19 storey building. Now, with the Melcotel controller in place, the system is consuming just 7-8kWh of energy per day, – an average 40% reduction in energy consumption for the whole system.

The Melcotel controller works with both key card and non-key card systems to ensure that air conditioning is not working needlessly when rooms are empty or if guests decide to open a window without switching off the heating or cooling.

Specifically designed for the mass-market hotel sector, the controller is an evolution in Mitsubishi Electric’s PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and can be retrofitted as well as being ideal for new builds.

At the start of the trial, the air conditioning was set to turn off automatically at 1am, but this still allowed guests to override the system.

Mitsubishi Electric then introduced a G50 controller which meant that the air conditioning could be programmed to automatically shut off five times a day at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, and 8pm, when there was a distinct possibility of the rooms being empty and the potential for energy to be wasted.

This led to some reduction in energy use, but now with Melcotel, the system automatically responds to the requirements of each individual room, resetting the air conditioning to a predetermined setting and constantly monitoring the temperatures of any unoccupied rooms.

The air conditioning in these empty rooms will only come on to keep the temperature within a set range, which has the double advantage of conserving energy whilst ensuring that the room reaches the desired temperature quicker when a guest enters the room.

Temperatures are recorded by a sensor within the controller and windows can also be connected to the system so that when they are opened, the air conditioning switches off to conserve energy.

Melcotel works with Mitsubishi Electric’s advanced City Multi systems and one unit is able to control up to 250 indoor units. Wireless technology allows the Melcotel to be accessed remotely when used in conjunction with a Mini M2M offering further control and monitoring facilities to hoteliers.