ASERCOM Energy Efficiency Award 2004

The "ASERCOM Energy Efficiency Award 2004" was presented on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the IKK-Exhibition on October 13, 2004 in Nuremberg, Germany.

The winning concept of this Award is a dew point cooling system, where the principle of evaporative cooling applies, using water. It is an indirect system because the added water is kept apart from the ‘conditioned’ air, and this air consequently keeps its original absolute humidity.

The winners are Oxycom BV, Netherlands, and Volair BV, Netherlands jointly with Carrier Nederland.

Together these two companies have developed and tested an innovative system which is now ready for market introduction. This technology is able to accomplish unusually low temperatures of the ‘conditioned’ air, below the out door wet bulb temperature. The system integrates ventilation and cooling in a way that achieves energy savings, environmentally friendly benefits and reduced investment cost for specific applications. Depending on the customers comfort demands, the dew point cooling system can be used as a pre-cooler to reduce the energy consumption of a conventional air conditioning system and thus lead to a hybrid energy efficient system.

The presentation was made on behalf of ASERCOM by the president Jochen A. Winkler, the laudation was held by Junior Minister Ms. Emilia Mueller, Bavarian State Ministry of Environment. The sponsorship of this award, by the Association of European Refrigeration Compressor and Controls Manufacturers, with a value of € 10 000 , has been announced in October 2002 for the first time and presented as the "ASERCOM Energy Efficiency Award 2003" in Hanover. Both the awards were granted for the most valuable energy saving concept or system in refrigeration/air conditioning/heat pump technology*. New concepts, practicable technically, and acceptable economically were the requirements for eligible applications. An international panel of technical experts, in 2004 from, Germany, Italy and Netherlands evaluated the applicants' cases and made final judgment.

* Energy consumption contributes by far the majority of greenhouse gas emissions over the lifetime of refrigeration and air conditioning systems - substantially more than any direct emissions of the HFC refrigerants. Typically 14% of Germany’s power consumption is used in these systems, and the figure is similar for other European countries. Hence efficiency improvements represent the way forward for the industry to contribute to emission reduction and therefore this award has been focused on energy reducing concepts.