With energy efficiency now a vital criterion in the design and operation of cooling systems, TAS — a leading provider of industrial cooling solutions — aims to set new benchmarks in the industry by providing solutions that optimise performance of the systems, according to Keith Evans, managing director of TAS Middle East.

Energy efficiency is fast becoming the predominant driver in the GCC and global energy markets. Commercial development, global economic expansion and rapid urbanisation in such cities as Dubai are creating an unprecedented demand for energy. With the GCC’s hot climate, the need for comfort cooling — the technology that has enabled rapid urbanisation of regional centres such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, Jeddah and Kuwait City — is growing more rapidly than any other use of energy.
Without the introduction of energy-efficient technologies, the supply/demand equation would quickly get out of balance. Companies such as TAS focus on reducing energy requirements by enhancing the efficiency of demand-side technologies, such as comfort cooling, effectively decreasing the amount of power required to cool homes, offices and places of entertainment. 
TAS was one of the first companies to recognise the value of introducing energy-efficient systems. It developed standardised chilled water products in blocks of 200 to 8,000 TR (tonnes of refrigeration), which can be installed as individual units or in series for large district cooling applications. For TAS, efficiency begins with design and it pre-engineers all of its systems and products, standardising component selection to optimise performance for the entire chilled water plant. 
TAS has taken the previously fragmented approach to the design, manufacture, installation and service of chilled water plants and has incorporated all of these functions into a single-source process. For the demand-side of the energy industry, TAS supplies:
• Chilled water systems for commercial comfort, district and industrial process cooling; and
• Clean heat and power systems for thermal energy space and water conditioning.
The company’s power generation supply-side solutions include:
• Clean heat and power for on-site power generation; and
• Chilled water- and air-cooled systems for turbine inlet chilling (used to augment natural gas turbine power generation capacity during summer peak periods).
From design to installation, TAS is redefining the value of energy efficiency in the GCC. Reducing demand for power and making generation assets more efficient has a combined economic and environmental benefit.  With its pre-engineered, standard product designs, TAS is the ultimate source for solutions that make energy consumption measurable and energy savings quantifiable.
TAS has a worldwide installed base of over 600,000 TR of chilled water systems with over 210,000 TR installed in the GCC.

Chilled water plants
To ensure consistent product quality, TAS’ chilled water plants are built to ISO 9001:2000 standards by a consistent and highly-trained labour pool organised in fixed work teams. All TAS systems are tested before they leave the factory. In addition, modular construction reduces site installation up to 75 per cent (as compared to field constructed chilled water plants) and the total project schedule is reduced up to 40 per cent, from receipt of purchase order to chilled water flow.
TAS chilled water plants — which have been installed at healthcare, educational, hospitality, commercial office, high-rise multi-family and industrial process facilities, globally — are designed to optimise the flow of chilled water from the chiller, to the pumps, to the cooling tower. Its design philosophy is to optimise selections, allowing for smaller pumps, drives and cooling towers. TAS systems include a complete controls package and an optional performance monitoring feature. 

District cooling
The district cooling industry is leading the GCC market in energy efficiency awareness and investment. As chilled water utility providers, district cooling companies are highly sensitive to the cost of electricity as it is the largest operating expense in managing a district cooling system. Consequently, any reduction in electricity consumption flows directly to the bottom line or shared customer savings. 
In addition to reducing electricity costs, high-efficiency district cooling systems reduce the requirement for power infrastructure investment. When considering the high cost of infrastructure in power production and transmission, district cooling provides a significant cost savings with direct benefit to the utility. A further benefit is simply reduced emissions. High efficiency district cooling central plants require less power to produce one tonne of refrigeration.
TAS is helping drive the market in the GCC’s burgeoning district cooling industry. Its approach to building pre-engineered and modular chilled water systems helps district cooling companies minimise construction and project schedule risk. By manufacturing modular chilled water plants versus constructing on-site, the company is able to mitigate weather, material supply, skilled labour availability, operating performance and schedule risk, thus helping construction managers stay on schedule and under budget in the fast-paced district cooling industry

Industrial process cooling
TAS utilises both water and air-cooled technology in support of industrial process cooling applications. These solutions are used across a multitude of applications ranging from oil shale exploration to ethanol production. With its cascade system refrigeration design, involving both ammonia and CO2 refrigeration loops, TAS is able to achieve temperatures around -51 deg C. 
Industrial process refrigeration systems are energy intensive. TAS, whose process cooling systems are designed to minimise energy usage in generating sub-zero temperatures, is recognised for optimizing operating efficiency and helps customers in reducing variable production costs across their respective industries. 

Clean heat and power
On-site clean heat and power (CHP) projects are normally custom engineered to a facility’s specific thermal requirements. TAS supports both on-site water and space conditioning with the generation of domestic hot water, process chilled water, chilled air, steam and heat. By utilising waste heat for thermal applications, TAS is able to achieve greater than twice the energy efficiency of grid-supplied power. 
Clean heat and power installations are frequently the most efficient approach to supplying a building’s electrical and thermal requirements. TAS is renowned for its highly prominent CHP installation at a healthcare facility in Austin Texas, where it was accredited with a LEED platinum award.

Power generation
Another application for TAS’ chilled water systems, using either evaporative or air cooled condensers, is the augmentation of simple and combined-cycle natural gas turbines. In the GCC, where daily highs can exceed 50 deg C, its inlet chilling technology restores generation capacity to nameplate rating, or better, by cooling the air entering the inlet of the gas turbine.
The science behind inlet chilling is simple: gas turbine performance is dependent on mass flow rate of the air entering the turbine. As ambient temperatures increase, mass flow rate decreases, which degrades combustion turbine power output. By cooling the inlet air to a set design point, gas turbine plant operators are able to maintain the inlet air temperature, thereby generating power output at the turbine’s rated capacity.
TAS has multiple project sites in the GCC where it provides both peak and intermediate load generation capacity. During the GCC’s summer peak period, inlet chilling can boost turbine output by more than 30 per cent. Installing inlet chilling on a simple or combined cycle gas turbine is a more efficient, quicker, lower-cost and environmentally-friendly approach to adding peak capacity than installing additional simple cycle power plants. The TAS team has experience with more than 75 inlet chilling systems installed across the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia and North and South America.  
TAS will be present at Stand 1E31 at the Big 5 show.