The 2020 production was above previous guidance, averaged at +33% of the company’s and its affiliates’ results in 2019, and setting the momentum for 2021 – amidst strong macro-economic headwinds. The company also recorded its highest-ever Q4 production, registering a 40% year-over-year growth for Q4.
Continuing to expand its solution portfolio for data center cooling, Kaltra releases dual-circuit precision air conditioners running on chilled water in pursuing optimum availability in mission-critical applications.
The development of environmentally friendly refrigerants for air conditioning and refrigeration equipment is imperative to the growth of HVAC technology. The low-GWP refrigerants like R1234ze are promising candidates for replacing HFC refrigerants. However, these refrigerants are flammable. To address the flammability issue, Honeywell developed Solstice® N15, a non-flammable HFO blend.
Responding to the increase in demand for microchannel heat exchangers for HVAC applications, Kaltra expands production capacity at its S-1 plant by installing the additional automatic core builders, fin rolling machines, and helium leak detection systems. This significant injection allows Kaltra to increase the annual production of microchannel coils by 20%.
Heat densities and, consequently, cooling costs rise a lot for modern data centers, making cooling efficiency the stirring topic for data center professionals. The reason for growing heat densities is advance in IT technologies like cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and growth in mobile data volumes.
Kaltra has announced a record sales increase of 25% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, despite the negative events of the year 2020.
Free cooling is a method of cooling by using ambient air rather than performing the refrigeration cycle with, e.g., with a chiller. Many cooling systems engaged for air conditioning or industrial cooling require chilled water throughout the year. During cold seasons, ambient air is cool enough, colder than the supply chilled water setpoint, and mechanical cooling with the chiller’s compressors can be replaced with the free cooling operation. Even in warm climates, free cooling can produce energy savings, as fan motors consume much less energy than compressors.
Surface coatings play an important role in increasing the service life of heat exchangers and, consequently, HVAC equipment’s lifespan. Surface coatings may also positively impact heat transfer efficiency – but this potential remained unfulfilled until now.
Kaltra continues to develop its environment-friendly refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, microchannel heat exchangers – together with all related services for our esteemed customers.
This year Kaltra is participating in the world-famous Chillventa 2020. The forum has long been widely known to all specialists in the field of refrigeration and air conditioning systems and our customers. During the pandemic, when personal communications in business are limited, the exhibition is held in a virtual format, but it continues to be a platform where we can present our latest developments and technologies, show our reliability and growing potential, become closer to our customers.
The latest update of KaltraSELECT selection software allows customers to calculate the performance data for all Kaltra products, including chillers, air-cooled condensers, air conditioners, and dry coolers. With this, Kaltra offers flexible tools for users to select appropriate products and systems.
Kaltra has extended its range of high-capacity dry coolers with Mistral series units in a V-shaped configuration, up to 2000kW in the air-cooled version and as high as up to 3000kW with the adiabatic: a total of about 500 models.
This month, Kaltra announced the completion of a service project for the replacement of condenser coils for the chilled water production plant of a Tier-III data center in Munich, Germany. More than 120 original heat exchangers reaching the end of service life have been replaced with Kaltra coils providing a long lifespan and additional corrosion protection.
Lambda DX/FGB, the latest addition to Kaltra’s IT cooling portfolio, offers flash gas bypass technology for these precision air conditioners, improving the system’s energy efficiency. With more cooling for less space, Lambda DX/FGB delivers accurate temperature and humidity control, whilst contributing to lower energy use.
Kaltra is now offering its Lambda II-M range of modular precision air conditioning units with two cooling circuits as an option to standard units, to further increase overall system redundancy to meet the highest demands for critical IT cooling applications, including colocation and hyperscale data centers.
Capacity control is in high demand for many cooling systems where cooling loads are not constant, and adjusting the system’s capacity to meet the prevailing load is essential for optimum efficiency. Efficiency primarily depends on compressor suction and discharge pressures, with the influence of secondary factors like useful and non-useful superheat and subcooling. As the screw compressor unloads, its suction pressure lowers (at the fixed condensing temperature), and efficiency decreases. Capacity control mechanisms allow maintaining the desired suction pressure by adjusting the refrigerant flow through the compressor.
Facing rapidly growing interest and sales in the region, Kaltra expands its regional support for microchannel heat exchangers in France and Italy. Services in the area primarily focused on OEM customers and include engineering support, warehousing, and aftersales.
Cognizant of its environmental stewardship and responsibility, Kaltra advances with low global warming potential solutions for chillers, now releasing R454b versions of its scroll compressor-based models.
Microchannel coils are here to stay. Their use is rapidly spreading to a variety of HVAC applications. Microchannel heat exchangers are stronger, lighter, offer higher heat transfer compared to other types of air-to-refrigerant coils. They are smaller in size and also in internal volume, resulting in a refrigerant charge that is significantly reduced.
Recently introduced chiller family based on Turbocor oil-free compressors and distinguished by high energy efficiency and environmental safety, received falling-film evaporators in addition to flooded models.
At Kaltra, the importance of top-notch service has always been seen as essential in the delivery of components. Kaltra’s forward-focused strategic approach, which always led to a successful relationship with our customers right in the early stages, ensures our competitive advantages in the long run and a key to our successful businesses. In the framework of this strategy, Kaltra continually strives to improve its service to customers.
Brazed all-aluminum microchannel coils perform superior heat transfer efficiency and capacity at the compact size compared with the conventional tube-fin heat exchangers. Another important factor of growing of microchannel heat exchanger popularity is the high corrosion resistance of aluminum, which is, however, achievable through the careful selection of aluminum alloys, surface treatments, and other protective measures.
Kaltra, the specialist in air-conditioning and heat transfer technologies, modernized its Turbocor compressor-based chillers with air-cooled condensers and presents performance highlights of the series.
The Lightstream Turbo II series is a unique development in the field of demand-responsive chillers, specially designed for variable-load cooling and optimized for the novel lower-GWP refrigerants R1234ze and R513a.
Kaltra has launched its KaltraCONTROL mobile app, providing remote monitoring and management for HVAC equipment over the internet, using almost any mobile device. The app allows review logs produced by Kaltra equipment, receive alerts, analyze and manage energy use, interactively configure operating parameters, schedule unit operation, and more.
Kaltra advances in creating protective treatments for microchannel heat exchangers and introduces new anti-corrosion coating for dry (fluid) coils to apply to inner surfaces. The new coating enables for an expanded range of process water pH value, a measure of how acidic/basic water is.
Every chiller or chiller plant should be, for the most part, relatively self-reliant. Yet like all heavy machinery, regular preventive maintenance can improve performance, prevent breakdowns, and extend the service life of the equipment. Chillers should be inspected leastwise two times a year if they are only used during the cooling seasons and four times a year in case of continuous operation.
We recommend the following procedures to keep your chiller system at peak performance and avoid unexpected shutdowns and costly downtimes. The below checklist has been compiled to help chiller plant operators conduct detailed and reliable maintenance on air-cooled and water-cooled chillers.
Lambda CW II-M is the result of an extensive R&D process, with Kaltra utilizing microchannel coil technology to give new ranges their own unique properties for precision cooling.
Air-conditioning and refrigeration industries have been evolving rapidly over the past decades. The latest energy efficiency regulations and phase-out of ozone-depleting refrigerants spur further development of air-to-refrigerant heat exchangers, making microchannel heat exchangers the better alternative to conventional heat exchangers for the majority of HVAC manufacturers. Heat transfer technology based on microchannel coils offers the largest potential for improving energy efficiency, reducing refrigerant volumes required, while also providing a number of other benefits.
Microchannel heat exchangers have been broadly used in automotive applications due to their advantages of compactness, low weight, and high efficiency. There are numerous heat exchangers designs based on microchannel technology with folded fins and flat tubes which are connected to manifolds. These designs are predominantly used for automotive radiators, condensers, and, more recently, automotive air conditioning evaporators.
Based on recently introduced low-charge microchannel condensers, Kaltra offers high-performance V-shaped condensing coil assemblies intended for use in air-cooled chillers and stand-alone condensers.
Although modern microchannel heat exchangers made from highly corrosion-resistant alloys and able to withstand any type of corrosion, be it galvanic, formicary, or other types, even without any protective coating, there are some harsh conditions under which additional treatment may extend their service life and guarantee trouble-free HVAC equipment operation.
As of January 31st, the main office of Kaltra in Austria will move to a new location in the city of Altmünster, which offers a better infrastructure to assist local customers. Kaltra has been highly active in Austria and surrounding regions since 2017 and expects significant business growth in the next couple of years.
When you need OEM replacement coils for your refrigeration or cooling system, Kaltra gets you covered with microchannel heat exchangers, matching or exceeding the performance of original coils.
