Denver airport pumping systems achieve optimal ΔTs

The newly completed Denver International Airport is the world's largest and most high-tech airport. Of particular interest to the HVAC industry is the design of the heating and cooling water systems. These systems had to be designed to respond to the load variations and future expansions that are inherent in a complex of this magnitude. Also,energy efficiency was a must in the design of these systems, because the cost of generating and transporting chilled water and hot water throughout the airport is a significant portion of the operating cost of the complex. The key to the energy savings is a unique methodology and system used to control the chilled water and hot water to obtain the design temperature differences, thereby insuring minimum gpm flow per Btu delivered. The system utilizes a three-tiered pumping concept consisting of a generation loop, a transport loop, and multiple user loops.