[Creative Cultivation Program] Central cooling is so wonderful, why is it so difficult to achieve?

Author: Chen Wen

Reviewer: Qin Zongmin

With the long-lasting summer, how is everyone's electricity bill? Many people were shocked when they saw their electricity bills. So, someone suggested that since there is central heating in the winter in the north, why can't there be central cooling?

You may say that this is not impossible. Starting this year, the Jinan CBD area has started a trial run of the centralized cooling mode, which has covered about 210,000 square meters of shopping malls and office buildings in the area. In my country, Guangzhou University City, Shenzhen Qianhai District, Beijing Zhongguancun Science Park and other areas have also adopted centralized cooling and have been put into operation. Among them, Guangzhou University City is the first in my country to implement centralized cooling, and it is also one of the regional cooling projects with the largest cooling capacity in the world.

However, the concept of centralized cooling is nothing new. As early as the 1940s, this concept was proposed. In 1961, Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, also tried centralized cooling, but due to technical limitations, poor results and low economic benefits, it was soon abandoned. Later, countries such as France, Sweden, and Denmark have made their own attempts. At present, Nordic countries are more adept at using natural cooling such as seawater, lake water, and groundwater for cooling.

So how does my country provide centralized cooling? Let’s take Guangzhou University City as an example.

The total construction area of ​​the university town is about 8 million square meters, and a distributed energy system is used to provide cooling for the school system. The entire system consists of a distributed energy station, a regional cooling system, and a centralized domestic hot water system.

The energy station generates electricity by burning natural gas. The waste heat generated by this is fed into the centralized domestic hot water system to meet the domestic water needs of teachers and students, and the other part is fed into the regional cooling system. This system is somewhat similar to a household air conditioner. It can generate cold water at about 2.5℃, which is cooled by exchanging heat energy with the air through a fan.

At the same time, in July this year, the "centralized monitoring and display center" of Shenzhen Qianhai No. 5 Cold Station was officially put into use. Qianhai No. 5 Cold Station is the central station of the Qianhai regional centralized cooling system and the first cold station in the Qianwan area of ​​the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Cooperation Zone. It has currently provided centralized cooling for more than 10 building complexes such as Qianhai Kerry Center and Qianhai CIMC International Center.

So why does central cooling sound so perfect, but it has not entered thousands of households like central heating?

The reason is simple: it is a thankless task. Although we have overcome the technical difficulties, the economic benefits of central cooling are still difficult to solve, just like 61 years ago.

First, theoretically, as long as we can provide central heating in a region, we can also provide central cooling. However, the cost of renovation and installation in this process is not low - on the one hand, the heating station needs to install refrigeration equipment, and on the other hand, residents' homes also need to be renovated and renovated, and uniform fan coil vents need to be installed. These costs are inevitable. At the same time, the cooling pipeline is much more "delicate" than the heating pipeline, and the subsequent maintenance is also a considerable expense.

Secondly, not everyone needs cooling, such as the elderly who are afraid of cold. Compared with the rigid demand of heating, cooling is more inclined to improve lifestyle consumption, and not everyone wants to pay for it. In some areas in the south where centralized cooling has been promoted, the monthly cooling fee is about 700 yuan, and the electricity bill for air conditioning may not be that high. So why don't I use air conditioning?

Therefore, we can only see centralized cooling in large shopping malls, stations, office buildings, hospitals, laboratories, factories and other special places. For commercial areas, centralized cooling is more cost-effective than building air-conditioning equipment by yourself. In this way, shopping malls not only reduce the land occupation of the machine room and the roof of the cooling tower, but also reduce the electricity capacity increase fee for air conditioning and refrigeration in the building, and there is no air-conditioning external unit to affect the beauty of the building.

At the same time, centralized cooling in commercial areas can also take advantage of the different peak energy demand times of commercial buildings with different functions, and cooperate with the design of ice storage and water storage systems to make full use of the peak-valley electricity price difference for cold storage and peak regulation, which not only reduces the system operating costs, but also achieves peak shaving and valley filling of the power grid.

The idea of ​​centralized cooling is indeed good, but it is still a long way from entering our homes. However, I believe that as technology matures and advances, we will always find a cooling method that can keep us cool in the summer and is energy-saving and environmentally friendly.

https://baike.baidu.com/item/集中供冷/61746444?fr=aladdin

https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1739319257387006424&wfr=spider&for=pc

https://www.chinakqn.com/a/goumaizhinan/2021/1126/11974.html

https://www.zhihu.com/question/345462833

https://m.thepaper.cn/baijiahao_19155987

This article is produced by the Science Popularization China-Creation Cultivation Program. Please indicate the source when reprinting