Paris district cooling is growing

A presentation of the Paris district cooling system by François Dupoux, President-General Director of Climespace (operator of the district cooling system) during the IIR-AFF centenary conference in Paris attracted a lot of interest. Many participants were surprised to learn that district cooling system in Paris (installed in 1994) was the largest in Europe - along with Stockholm - in terms of installed refrigerating capacity: 240 MW. The system has 6 central refrigerating plants (using mostly R-134a reciprocating compressors, cooled 73% by Seine river water), 1 chilled water storage tank, and 2 ice storage tanks located on both banks of the Seine. The distribution network is currently 70 km (+ 3 km per year) long and 450 buildings - including the Louvre museum, the Forum des Halles, The French parliament, the Garnier opera house, etc. - are connected. By 2012, several additional central plants should increase the refrigerating capacity up to 370 MW. F. Dupoux presented figures regarding the operating conditions: installed refrigerated capacity per subscribed kW: 0.65 as compared with 1.25 for typical water chillers; measured COP: 3.8 (energy savings of 30-40%); refrigerant emissions: 6.8 g/kW (2.7% as compared to 10% with traditional water chillers). He mentioned other advantages such as a drastic reduction in health hazards (legionella, oxidative biocides) and noise. See F. Dupoux's presentation: www.iifiir.org, more at www.climespace.fr