Snowcooling; storing the cooling power of snow

Snowpower AB offers renewable energy in form of cooling based on snow and ice. The company also design snowcooling plants.

SNOWCOOLING. The regional hospital in Sundsvall, Sweden, has been cooled by means of a snowcooling plant since 2000 without one hour of operational failure.

Snowcooling means storing of snow in winter to be used for different cooling purposes the warmer parts of the year. Such purposes can be comfort, process and storage cooling, if the temperature need is (slightly) above 0oC. It is also feasible to increase electricity production at CHP:s, and to decrease the electricity consumption for freezers. Snowcooling works in any location with enough natural snow precipitation and where it is feasible to produce snow.

The snow may be stored in a pit, underground or in some other way. The cooling power is extracted by circulating water through the snow.

Benefits of snowcooling

There are a number of benefits with snowcooling, compared with electrical chillers:

• Reduced electricity consumption (90-95 %)
• ”Unlimited” cooling power
• Facilitated handling of the pollutions in urban snow
• Shorter snow transportations if the storage is located in city centres (underground)
• Highly suitable for peak cooling.

 
Snowcooling also share the general benefits of district cooling, such as:

• Very high operational safety
• Easy accessibility equal to district heating or electricity
• Improved energy surveillance
• Occupies a small building volume
• No noise

Snowpower

Snowpower AB offers the core of snowcooling, i.e. knowledge. Despite being a new and small company they have more than 30 years of experience of snowcooling, both from operation and research. Together with their partners theyvhave capacity to carry out any project in the field.

Snowpower AB will sell cooling from its own plants as well as turn-key-made plants for customers that prefer to operate their snowcooling themselves.

Visit the Snowpower web site

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