The evaporative cooling industry delivers savings in terms of CO₂ emissions — now and in the future — an advantage over dry cooling alternatives.

Those results are part of a two-year study by the Eurovent Association, in close cooperation with European evaporative cooling equipment manufacturers. The study simulated, on a year-round basis, the typical behavior of a refrigeration system using an air-cooled condenser and a water-cooled condenser using wet cooling towers. This study has resulted in average CO₂ emission savings of about 15.5 percent for industrial (process) applications and 16 percent for HVAC applications. By converting the estimated installed base of air-cooled chillers (530 units per year in EU28), the Eurovent Association estimates that by using evaporative cooling equipment, CO₂ emission saving of about 56,000 tons of CO₂/per year is fully achievable.

One year of operation was simulated for each system. The same yearly load profile and weather conditions were used in all simulations.

Rob Vandenboer, chairman of the “Evaporative Cooling 2030” special project, said, “When comparing a highly efficient evaporative cooling system with an alternative dry cooling solution, the CO₂-saving potential of the evaporative cooling for the entire system is clearly proven by this robust simulation.”

The recommendation and industry monograph can be downloaded from the Eurovent site. Participants of the research project include Baltimore Aircoil Co. (Belgium), Decsa (Italy), Evapco (Belgium), Gohl (Germany), Jacir (France), KTK (Germany) and Mita (Italy).