Canadian manufacturer Vitalis now offers a packaged megawatt CO2 heat pump solution to the North American Market that provides simultaneous heating and cooling for commercial, industrial and district heating applications.
According to James Seabrook, President of Vitalis, the Coolshift heat pump is available in multiple configurations using air, water or ground heat sources. A single unit provides between 100‒400kW (28.4‒113.7TR) of heating capacity, with the XL package meeting the megawatt demands of district energy systems. The Coolshift heat pump is reversible and its applications include district energy systems, recreational facility heating and cooling, and food manufacturing.
“In an ambient loop district heating system, the unit gives an annualized COP between 3.5 and 4,” Seabrook told Marc Chasserot, Founder and CEO of ATMOsphere, the publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com, in an exclusive interview. “For heating loads in a moderate climate around 10°C [50°F] ambient, we get a COP for district energy close to 6.”
Applications: “The heat pump [supports] megawatt projects on a single rack,” Seabrook said.
- Heating and cooling applications include commercial buildings, district energy loops and recreational facilities.
- Industrial applications include heat reclaim and transfer, blast freezing, freeze-drying and processing hot water.
- Commercial applications include refrigeration and cold storage.
Energy project: Vitalis is working with the University of British Columbia to install a 1.5MW (426.5TR) reversible air-to-water heat pump at the Okanagan (UBCO) campus in the city of Kelowna. Vitalis is headquartered in. Kelowna
- A CO2 Coolshift unit will become the primary heat source for the campus’s low-temperature district energy system, providing 98.4% of the total heating demand and meeting 99.9% of the auxiliary cooling demand.
- According to Seabrook, the UBCO system expands to 2.5MW (710.9TR) with “a simple” compressor change.
Collaboration: In May, KKVB Group, the parent company of German manufacturer TEKO Refrigeration, announced it had acquired Vitalis. TEKO offers the Coolshift CO2 heat pump in Europe while Vitalis offers it in North America.
- Vitalis has put its own spin on the Coolshift line, per Seabrook. “We applied TEKO’s refrigeration experience to our heat pump technology,” he said. “We simplified the heat pump and added cool technologies, like ejector lift, to provide higher suction pressures for better compressor performance.”
Quotable: “We see a desire in the market for highly efficient, natural refrigerant solutions,” Seabrook said. “We took our CO2 technology and packaged it into something that easily fits into commercial spaces.”
