Scan Magazine | Business Profile | STAC Technology
Making cold air with hot water Utilising the hot water from district heating to run air conditioning units might seem counter-intuitive, but it can in fact reduce energy consumption by up to 90 per cent, and CO2 by 85 per cent. Scan Magazine talks to Poul Christoffersen, co-founder of STAC Technology ApS, the Danish company that has taken a twodecade-old discovery and turned it into a brand-new solution for companies and home owners wanting to keep cool and cut their CO2 footprint.
anywhere that needs cooling, like for instance a supermarket that needs a green cooling solution, an office with large windows that needs cooling in the summer and heating in the winter, or a production site that needs hot water in production and a refrigerant later in the process.”
By Signe Hansen | Photo: STAC Technology
With estimates predicting an alarming global increase in the use of air conditioners (reports estimate 700 million new air conditioners, with an energy consumption equalling that of several countries, will be installed by 2030), a technology that can turn the heat down on the cooling industry is much needed. Christoffersen, co-founder of STAC Technology, explains how his company aims to do just that. “STAC Technology’s main idea and ambition is to provide a global sustainable refrigerant solution using hot water from the district heating system to create cool air. Our turbine solution might be described as a modern steam engine in which water is heated up to run a turbine that pulls the energy out of the air via a process that creates cool air or another form of cooling. It can also be used to produce hot air in the winter.”
to fill specific site requirements and even be moved without any great expenditure,” says Christoffersen. “The cooling solution can be implemented when establishing district heating, but is especially suitable for implementation on an existing district heating system. It could be
The hot water that runs the STAC turbine can derive from various sources on top of district water, such as solar energy or excess heating from fuel-fired engines. For more information, please visit: www.stactechnology.com
The technology, which uses no harmful chemicals and only uses water as a refrigerant, was first invented by Danish engineer Gunnar Minds in the early ‘90s, awarded the European Better Environment Award in 1996. However, despite having run a major industrial refrigeration plant at LEGO for 20 years, the technology has so far been considered too expensive and impractical to be utilised on a commercial scale. But by marrying the discovery with new technology and utilising existing sources of water, such as district heating, which is widespread in many parts of the world including Scandinavia and China, STAC Technology is ready to change that. “STAC’s system is flexible and can be set up in no time, within 24 hours. Besides, as it’s a modular system, it can be scaled 90 | Issue 100 | May 2017
STAC’s district cooling solution uses the existing grid and requires no additional infrastructure investments.