Simultaneous heating and cooling

What is Simultaneous Heating and Cooling?

Simultaneous means occurring at the same time. When we are talking about HVAC simultaneous heating and cooling this means that we are heating and cooling at the same time. HVAC systems have the ability to have a single unit that can give you any amount of heating, any amount of cooling and any amount of simultaneous heating and cooling at once. This means if you have a building with higher heating loads at some points and higher cooling loads at other points, but a large simultaneous (mixed) load throughout the year, your best and most efficient option will be to put in a simultaneous heating and cooling unit. This was typically seen in the HVAC industry with VRF (variable refrigerant flow) systems, but over the past couple of years there have been major developments with air-to-water simultaneous heating and cooling units. Air-to-water Simultaneous units can operate in heating, cooling, or simultaneous heating and cooling allowing you to recover as much energy as possible.

Simultaneous units are being designed all over North America as everyone is constantly striving to be as energy efficient as possible and even design towards Net-Zero buildings. The difference in VRF systems and air to water units is the fact that as VRF units are efficient, you will have refrigerant running through the full building. With Air to water units the high efficiency is still there, but the need for refrigerant in the building is not there as you will be running water through the building. As we continue to reach for the highest of efficiencies, moving away from fossil fuels and refrigerant in full buildings air to water Simultaneous heating and cooling are the design of not only the future, but the design of right now.

How Does it Work?

Simultaneous heating and cooling works by controlling/directing the refrigerant in a unit to either produce heating, cooling or simultaneous heating and cooling. Essentially, the simultaneous units have multiple heat exchangers allowing them to provide cooling only through an evaporator, or heating only through the condenser they also have a heat recovery heat exchanger that allows them to drop the source (air or water) and move the energy around the building.

If we are talking about an air to water unit, the unit should have 2 heat exchangers.

1. There should be one dedicated for cooling
2. One dedicated for heating

When the unit has a need for cooling only it will work as a chiller, by having cooling to the cooling dedicated heat exchanger and reject the heating out to the condenser. When the unit has a need for heating only it will work as a heat pump, by having all the heating to the heat exchanger that is dedicated for heating and reject the cooling to the condenser. When the unit is in simultaneous heating and cooling the unit will essentially be working as a water to water unit. It will not use the outdoor condenser and by controlling the refrigerant inside the unit we can have all the cooling we need to the dedicated exchanger for cooling and all the heating we need to the dedicated exchanger for heating.

Simultaneous units are able to provide cooling, heating cooling and heating at any time in any amount up to 100%.

100% Heating or 100% cooling or 100% heating and 100% cooling. We may also have 20% cooling and 80% heating or 30% heating and 60% cooling. Any amount of heating and any amount of cooling at any time and the smallest load will be free.

Why Simultaneous Heating and Cooling?

Simultaneous heating and cooling units have major advantages in any building that will have a need for heating, cooling and a large mixed load throughout the year. Simultaneous units are used in Net-Zero buildings for a reason. They are the most efficient solution to this date as you can do all the buildings cooling and recover all the heating needed for free. It also works the opposite way if the heating load is dominant it will be in heating and recover the cooling. This allows simultaneous units to have a standard chiller efficiency of around 10 Btu/W in cooling-only mode and a COP of around 3 W/W for heating-only mode (air to water). When the unit is in simultaneous heating and cooling the efficiency will have a Total Energy Ratio (TER) of above 6 W/W. By having a TER of above 6 W/W this proves to be the most efficient way to have simultaneous heating and cooling. Traditionally this will need to be done with a chiller and boiler.

With a chiller and boiler you will have 2 separate systems and they will not allow any heating or cooling recovery (free). With air to water and water to water we can have any amount of heating, any amount of cooling, or any mixed load all with 1 unit. This will save on energy costs, installation cost, and controls cost.

Why simultaneous heating and cooling? As stated in the beginning of this topic, any building with a need for heating, cooling and has a large mixed (simultaneous) load all year will have many advantages and energy saving opportunities.

Clivet provides energy recovery on the refrigeration side of the system while many competitors do it on the water side. Clivet has many different sizes to allow one unit with multiple circuits as the system. Most competitors use smaller modules and must join many modules together causing a higher installation cost as well as opening the door for more leaks etc. as contractors need to provide labor on-site for something Clivet does in the factory.

Clivet offers simultaneous units from 65 tons to 125 tons. For more details please see the product page.

Other Systems

If a building has a need for simultaneous heating and cooling, there are typically 4 solutions.

Solution 1: Use a Chiller and a Boiler

This solution can be piped to be seasonal changeover, or 4-pipe configuration. The problem with a chiller and a boiler is that you will never be recovering any energy from one another and you will be using fossil fuels inside the building. As we are trying to move away from fossil fuels and more towards energy efficient solutions we look to packaged simultaneous machines.

Solution 2: Use a VRF System

VRF systems are seen quite frequently, they are efficient and they allow for simultaneous heating and cooling into a building. The problem with a VRF system is the fact that there will be refrigerant throughout the full building. We understand this is a better solution than using fossil fuels, but moving forward we are trying to limit the amount of refrigerant we have inside the building. With refrigerant in the building there are a couple disadvantages:

1. You must respect ASHRAE 15 & 34 in regards to maximum concentration of refrigerant allowed in a space
2. If the refrigerant changes, depending on the density of the refrigerant you will need to change the piping for the full system
3. If the outdoor unit becomes obsolete you must change the entire system

Solution 3: Air to Water Simultaneous Machine

Air to water systems can do the same thing as a VRF only with some additional benefits:

1. Now you have the refrigerant for the system outside and only water inside the building. This means you will not need to worry about ASHRAE 15 & 34 as water is not a risk if there is a small leak
2. If the refrigerant changes, the full building system stays and you will only need to replace the outdoor unit. This saves a lot of costs thinking of the future
3. If the outdoor unit becomes obsolete you do not need to change anything inside of the building

As we are moving forward we see more and more designs going towards air-to-water simultaneous units.

Applications

Simultaneous units can be used in any 4-pipe building. Any building that has dominant heating at some points, dominant cooling at some points, but also a large simultaneous (mixed) load inside the building will benefit from a simultaneous unit. We see all different types of applications for simultaneous units.

To go over a couple of examples we can look at a hospital. Hospitals will have a high cooling need all year, but also they need hot water all year also. The heating load goes up and down all year depending on the hot water needs and the cooling seems to be dominant in the summer. In the winter there is still a large cooling load, but the heating load may be the same, making the heating mode dominant at this time and recovering all the cooling at this point.

We have had many applications similar to this like correctional institutes that need cooling all year and needs domestic hot water all year.

We see many residential complexes that are looking to go Net-Zero, they can now have a unit that does all of their heating, cooling and domestic hot water all year round.

Any building that has simultaneous loads will benefit from a simultaneous unit. The more the simultaneous unit operates the greater the savings. Condominiums, schools, pools, grow ops, apartments, hotels, office towers, mining, industrial, and shopping malls to name a few.

Building management: Bacnet, Lonworks, and Modbus are all available, and no need to worry about proprietary software.

To contact the North
American Master Distributor

Mits Airconditioning Inc.,
1608 Bonhill Road
Mississauga, ON L5T 1C7 | Canada

Email: clivet@mitsair.com

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