FEASIBILITY OF ICE-SLURRY APPLICATION TO THE DISTRICT COOLING SYSTEM IN KOREA

Abstract

The district-cooling system (DCS) has been in service in Sang-am in Seoul, Korea since 2005. The capacity of the DCS facility in Sang-am was 111 Gcal/h in 2011, and an additional 63 Gcal/h capacity is planned for installation by 2025. However, the cooling demand has increased due to unexpected high-rise building blocks, and the required facility capacity is expected to be 101 Gcal/h. Adding a new building plan to the existing plant is difficult. This study centers on a feasibility study for the new requirement under the restrictions of existing pipelines, limited space and regulations on the use of electric-driven chillers in Korea, etc. The precise estimation of the diversity factor is essential to determine the required capacities. To this end, each building in the district area was categorized, and the cooling loads were measured for the summer seasons of 2010 and 2011. The large energy capacity of an ice-slurry can potentially increase the cooling capacity in existing plants while maintaining the same flow rate and pumping power. Thus introducing an ice-slurry is expected to be a potential solution to the significantly increased cooling load under the restriction of existing pipeline system without requiring increases in pipe size or system flow rates.