What would you say if I told you wastewater may some day provide the energy for your HVAC? In fact, wastewater may be the new face in fuel utilizing thermal extraction adding not only to efficiency, but also water heating. International Wastewater Systems Inc tackled thermal extraction and developed its PIRANHA heat recovery system which won the AHR 2016 Green Building Product of the Year Award. This system when combined with your HVAC system will help you lower your utility cost.
Soon, a joint venture between Wastewater System Inc and Review Energy Partners LLC in California will result in the deployment of 1000 PIRANHA thermal heat recovery systems to provide domestic hot water needs in 50 to 100 multifamily housing units. It doesn’t have to stop there though, this system can also provide efficiency in HVAC.
How does thermal recovery work with HVAC?
Exhaust Recovery Ventilators or ERVs are made to save energy in business and home applications. They work by mixing air exhausted from the building exchanges energy with the makeup air coming back into the building. This helps to pre-cool or pre-heat the makeup air depending on which season it is resulting in lower cost HVAC.
The PIRANHA does the same thing, only it uses exhaust water (wastewater) and recovers the unused energy for other purposes such as domestic hot water or HVAC.
How much energy is available through this resource to fuel your HVAC?
The US Department of Energy, approximates 350 billion kWh of usable energy goes down the drain each year; enough energy to heat 5 billion average sized homes in the dead of winter for a 24-hour day! Take that statement in while you think about your costs, this is serious energy.
In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the city actually displaced natural gas heating with a wastewater energy plant. In fact, city leaders are convinced that by using geothermal heat pumps and inventive strategy, they will meet their goal. You can have this type of system to increase efficiency in your system.
Other systems
The SHARC is another product, however it is compatible with multiple applications including residential HVAC. Soon it will be a norm in buildings across the country where wastewater energy recovery systems will become a part of the energy source for the building helping control HVAC cost and water heating cost.
Geothermal heat pumps allow optimization of these wastewater energy recovery systems delivering final temps from well below freezing to 140 degrees for HVAC or domestic hot water.
Want to know more this energy source for your HVAC?
If you want to know more about this amazing additional source of energy for your HVAC, contact Chinook today. Located in Kennewick in the tri-cities area Chinook is open Monday thru Saturday 9 am to 6 pm, closed on Sunday. They can be reached 24/7 at 509-736-1121.