All About Modular Chiller Systems

Modular chillers have emerged recently as a more cost-effective, mass-produced answer to completely customized chillers in HVAC systems. What is a modular chiller? It’s a small packaged chiller that your HVAC provider can combine with other chiller modules to make a single larger machine within your HVAC system. Let’s explore the different types of modular chiller systems and how you can benefit from installing one in your commercial HVAC system.

Modular Chiller Types

The different types of modular chillers include modular water-cooled chillers and modular air-cooled chillers.. However, both types have the same central parts, including a compressor, a condenser, an expansion device, and an evaporator. Within those two main types, there are a few subtypes related to their compressor types: centrifugal, screw, and scroll. Our team members at Air Comfort can help you decide which modular chiller type and subtype best fit your facility’s HVAC operations.

How Multiple Chiller Modules Work Together

When you put two of these chiller modules together, one module controls the other. The two modules communicate to each other through a microprocessor controller. For water-cooled chillers, the chilled water travels from both modules’ chilled water supply and from the heat exchanger (after it cools) to the main module’s chilled water supply header and return header.

What‘s a Modular Chiller’s Purpose?

In general, chillers expand your HVAC system’s cooling capacity. A modular chiller uses two or more modules to expand your system’s cooling capacity further than a standard chiller would. When the modules work together, they create a larger capacity than one standard chiller would alone.

Water-cooled chillers use water to cool the environment around them, and air-cooled chillers use air. However, both types have the same central parts, including a compressor, a condenser, an expansion device, and an evaporator. Within those two main types, there are a few subtypes related to their compressor types: centrifugal, screw, and scroll.

Benefits of Modular Chillers

Modular chillers offer a wide range of benefits to your commercial or industrial HVAC system and your facility overall. For example, they’re smaller in size than standard chillers, so they’re great for retrofitting old heating and air conditioning equipment. You can fit the modules into an existing HVAC system more easily than you can a standard chiller. Additionally, having multiple modules gives your system extra redundancy. That means you’ll face less downtime if one of the modules malfunctions because each module has its own dedicated power, so it can keep producing cooling capacity for your system.

Other important benefits include modular chillers’ energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact. Modular chillers can be adapted for heat pumps, so they can provide heating capacity as well as cooling capacity. You can use this flexibility to cool or heat your facility as needed while you perform your commercial or industrial processes. Additionally, modular chillers meet the ASHRAE 90.1 standard easily. Some modular chillers, such as the Carrier AquaSnap Air-Cooled Chillers and Water-Cooled Chillers, use non-ozone-depleting refrigerants. These features reduce modular chillers’ environmental impact and make sure they keep your facility safe as they help cool it.

Install a Modular Chiller With Air Comfort

Air Comfort’s team of experts can help you purchase and install a modular chiller in your commercial or industrial HVAC system. We can retrofit your current system with an air-cooled or water-cooled modular chiller. We can also work this type of chiller into a design/build project we build and install for you. What if you need a modular air-cooled or water-cooled chiller for a plan/spec project you need completed? We can work with that, too. We will go over your plans and CAD drawing and calculate the right loads for your new system, and we’ll take your chiller into account during that process.

Whatever your chiller-related needs are, we can meet them and customize your system to accommodate your chiller and your facility’s HVAC requirements. We can also work with and design other HVAC components, including cooling towers, absorption chillers, and condensing boilers. Reach out to us today to begin improving your HVAC system with modular chillers.