In total, the refrigeration specialist from Lindau on Lake Constance has now installed four ultramodern test beds at its head office for customer approvals and internal development processes. The beds feature real-time visualisation of all operating data, including performance, temperatures, pressures and flow rates.

Engie Refrigeration can now test water-cooled chillers with a performance of up to six megawatts; that means that the business now operates one of the largest test beds in Europe. Its available cooling capacity corresponds to roughly 15,000 household fridges. A water flow rate of up to 1,100 cubic metres per hour is possible, enough to fill just under 8,000 bath tubs. This is possible thanks to the innovative automation and control technology that is used by the refrigeration experts at Engie Refrigeration and which guarantees a temperature-stable control of the operating points. The test bed is also highly automated, which reduces the necessary set-up and test times to a minimum and thereby increases efficiency.

“With this new test bed, Engie Refrigeration is perfectly set up to examine all chillers from our product portfolio for performance and efficiency in a variety of scenarios,” says Jochen Hornung, managing director at Engie Refrigeration. “We will focus on particularly powerful chillers and refrigeration systems, as demand for such machines is growing steadily on the international market.”

Test beds for all occasions

Of the four test beds at Engie Refrigeration's head office in Lindau, there are two test beds for water-cooled chillers with a refrigeration capacity of up to 1.5 megawatts, which can be equipped with an additional testing facility for glycol chillers with an outlet temperature of up to -20 degrees Celsius and a refrigeration capacity of up to 180kW. There is a test bed for air-cooled chillers with a refrigeration capacity of up to 1.5 megawatts, and the new test bed for water-cooled chillers with a refrigeration capacity of up to six megawatts. Engie Refrigeration can therefore test four chillers for a variety of functions simultaneously across four test beds.