EUROPEAN SOLIDARITY CENTER

Near the famous former Gate No. 2 of the Gdańsk Shipyard Lenin, the European Solidarity Center was established. The original building is not only due to the unusual facades, with a rusty color referring to the shipyard hulls, but also because of the technically advanced installations. The headquarters of the Center with an area of nearly 26,000 m2 has 5 floors and a large underground car park, and 50,000 m3 of concrete and 30,000 m2 of special "rusty" Corten sheet were used to build it. Although the installations at ECS are not a match for HVAC engineers, a few of their elements are worth noting.
The underground car park conceals an installation of vertical ground probes under its slab, providing a source of heat and cool for heating and air conditioning installations. The probes placed in the boreholes were collected and connected to 3 water-water heat pumps. In winter, heat pumps provide heating water for heating and process heat. On the other hand, in summer, the brine pumped from earth probes is a source of cooling for fan coils and chilled beams in the building.
Reversible operation of heat pumps means that during the summer the heat received from the air conditioning system is transferred to earth probes, perfectly thermally regenerating the ground and thus increasing the efficiency of work in the next winter period. The use of an associated system of fan coil units and chilled beams in the building and different chilled water supply temperatures for these systems has resulted in a significant increase in the global efficiency of the entire cooling system.
Air-conditioning units are another interesting element. The standard block configuration was equipped with an internal reversible cooling circuit. In summer, the air handling units ensure air cooling without the need to install external cooling units. In addition, when a conventional condensing unit is able to achieve an EER of 2.9-3.2, the cooling circuit in the AHU is around 3.5-4.0. On extremely hot days, the advanced PRS air recirculation system ensures highly effective cooling and the appropriate condensation temperature of the refrigerant.
In turn, in winter, the air handling units turn into heat pumps, using the exhaust air from the rooms. Here, the exhaust temperature is around 20 ° C, making it an excellent bottom heat source. As a result, with standard winter outside temperatures, the air handling unit does not need to use technological heat at all, achieving a COP energy efficiency ratio close to 6.