Cooling Hong Kong's tallest building
When the 490-meter ICC Tower opens at Kowloon Station in 2010, it will be Hong Kong’s tallest and the third tallest building in the world. Alfa Laval is involved in this remarkable construction project, by supplying heat exchangers for the HVAC system that keeps the entire building comfortably – and efficiently – cooled, heated and ventilated.
DATE 2023-11-28Keeping temperatures at an even, comfortable level throughout this gigantic building – and throughout the year – is no simple task. The pressure needed to keep the cooling liquid running vertically up to 490 meters is prohibitively high. The solution is to divide the building into three vertical zones, and use heat exchangers as pressure breakers between them. Such pressure breakers need to perform with a minimum of temperature losses, using a minimum of incremental energy.
Also, the owner, Sun Hung Kai Properties, has to make sure the air conditioning is able to match the premium nature (and rent) of the office space they are putting on the market. In other words, malfunctions and down-time of the system must be minimized (preferably eliminated). To ensure this high level of efficiency and reliability, the contractor, Takasago Thermal Engineering Co, turned to Alfa Laval for the heat exchangers.
The efficiency of the Alfa Laval heat exchangers is ensured through their exceptionally close temperature approach. LMTD is guaranteed to be less than 1 K. The result is a very high NTU score and, hence, superior heat recovery at every breaker level throughout the ICC building.
Product
- For the pressure breakers throughout the ICC building, Alfa Laval is supplying a total
of 14 large plate heat exchangers MX25 – each optimized for the specific thermal duties on each breaker level. - The plates are made of premium 316 stainless steel, to guarantee reliable performance with a minimum of maintenance. The design pressure is 20 barg.