Cooling Tower System With Zero Capital Investment

The Client –

Rubber Processor, South Of England


The Challenge –

Failing Cooling System


The Solution –

Energy Saving Analysis & Cooling Tower Replacement

It can often be confusing for clients looking to install, upgrade or replace cooling equipment because of the wide range of products available to choose from and their respective advantages or disadvantages depending on the application.

For one client trying to choose between a cooling tower and an adiabatic cooler, Aqua carried out a cost analysis based on their facility and operating conditions, to illustrate the true lifetime cost of both options.

Based on the South Coast, the client specialises in cabling for energy and telecom applications. Their large factory facility had a cooling tower-based cooling system on site. However, after serving them well for 30 years, the aging towers were starting to raise health & safety concerns within the business. However, a question remained over whether they replaced the equipment with similar cooling towers or moved to adiabatic cooling.

“Often customers look to move away from cooling towers because of the associated risks of legionella and the ongoing water treatment costs and H&S implications but in reality, the key is good regular maintenance” explains Aqua Group Sales Manager, Shaun Lancaster.

“For our client we analysed the true costs of both systems – considering capital costs, energy costs and running costs (including maintenance) – and cooling towers came out on top. Where we like to feel we’re different as a business, is we give transparent energy & related cost savings. We look at the complete picture, considering capital and operational costs, our savings aren’t just on the supply of the equipment but on the lifetime operation and all the variables that brings.”

“We also considered how we could introduce glycol into the adiabatic cooling option without adding it to the main factory water. The answer was relatively straightforward – just add heat exchangers and additional pump skids – but the impact of this would have been an increase in the temperature of the supply water.”

Aqua supplied a replacement Marley NC tower unit, factory assembled, single cell, crossflow design. The cooling tower’s casing, structure, collection & distribution basin were constructed in galvanised steel to give additional corrosion protection. Aqua engineers erected, installed and commissioned the tower.

“The icing on the cake, so to speak, was that Aqua supplied the new tower based system for the buy- back cost of some redundant adiabatic units that the client had on site, so the project was completed with zero CAPEX investment.”