Highly efficient innovative shallow-water based Sea Water Air Conditioning solution for the Channel Area

EUROSWAC is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, total budget of €3,515,877.84, including ERDF fund of €2,295,250.24.

Aims

EUROSWAC aims at designing and validating an innovative, cost-efficient and environmentally friendly solution for cooling production, using English Channel’s seawater (widely available renewable energy source) as refrigerant, exploiting temperature difference between cold ocean water and external air temperature.

Motivation

While the need for cooling in large coastal cities is increasing at UK-FR levels (due to climate change crease), cooling is still mainly produced through chillers, a technology using large amounts of electricity generated partially by fossil fuels, slowing down the ability to meet Channel Area (CA) energy-climate objectives. EUROSWAC demonstrates the ability of using the Channel seawater for free cooling, adapting an existing technology used in tropical areas to the low depth and temperate climate of CA.

Partnership

Building on complementary expertise of 11 UK-FR partners from the academic and industrial fields and on the analysis of Channel’s unique features, EUROSWAC aims to develop and test in real life conditions a SWAC prototype at the Brixham Laboratory and National Lobster Hatchery in UK. This shallow-water based SWAC system will be the first to support enhancing aquaculture food-stock, which will represent major benefits in regards to CO2 emissions, lifespan and costs compared to existing solutions.

The University of Plymouth involvement

The importance of optimising environmentally friendly seawater air conditioning solutions provides new innovative opportunities for economical renewable energy resource. Our research aims are to advance new technologies for sustainable energy storage while promoting creative solutions to reduce and optimise SWAC impact on the surrounding environment. The research will explore use of potential energy recovery heat pump and efficient pipe designs to maximise energy utilisation efficiencies, complemented by cutting-edge analytical and numerical modelling to assess delivery infrastructure distribution and associated impact of warm or cold water reject on the marine environment. The proposed research will utilise facilities at University of Plymouth’s Brixham Laboratory, an environmental testing laboratory, which has the necessary licenses and infrastructure to extract and discharge seawater as a demonstration site for the EUROSWAC project. The developed theoretical and numerical models will be validated against data from experimental findings.

Investigators

More information on the project and its results: https://euroswac.fr/