Lake Source Cooling Using Hdpe Pipe

Oxford Plastics manufactures hdpe pipe specifically for lake source cooling projects as well as many other cooling systems. Lake source cooling (LSC) or deep water source cooling (DWSC) is the practice of using a large body of naturally cold water as a heat sink for process and comfort space cooling. As a renewable resource of cold water, lakes, oceans, aquifers and rivers can provide an unlimited amount of cooling. The basic concept behind lake source cooling is to use naturally occurring cold water to produce chilled water to be used for building comfort cooling as an alternative to using energy intensive air conditioning equipment.

Applications: you are on the lake source cooling page


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How Lake Source Cooling Works
Lake source cooling is simple idea, but requires a lot of planning and work. Like geothermal systems that use the earth as a source of heat and cooling, lake source cooling uses large bodies of water as a source of cooling. LSC is basically a closed loop chilled water system where the lake water enters the system via a pipeline of hdpe pipe to a heat exchange facility on land where cold chilled water absorbs heat from the building water and piped up to the buildings to meet the cooling needs of laboratories, research spaces, offices, classrooms, and many other public and private facilities. A series of stiffener rings and concrete collars keep the pipeline on the lake floor and protect it from mechanical forces. Non-contact cooling and heat transfer of this type is a very common and well-proven technology. LSC is only unusual in its use of very cold and deep lake water.

The lake water system is designed as a siphonic system. In this type of system, the only pumping power required is to overcome friction even though there is a significant elevation rise to the top of the piping system from the wet well supply. Essentially, as the water falls back to the lake in the return piping, it creates a vacuum, which in turn pulls water up into the system through the supply piping. The siphonic principle holds true provided the piping system stays full of liquid, flows full and remains free of vapor or air. This necessitates the need for an air extraction system, which maintains a full pipe.

History of Lake Source Cooling
Lake source cooling was first tried in the late 1800's during the Industrial Revolution for cooling machines and buildings. There are also examples of lake or river cooling for a district system, but in most situations, a chiller plant is often involved. During the winter months when most lakes and rivers cool down below 40°F, using a heat exchanger to transfer heat from a chilled loop to the lake or river is very common. During the rest of the year when the lake or river is above 40°F, a chiller plant is necessary to move the heat from the chilled water loop to the cool water source.

Oxford Plastics Inc. ~ PO Box 119, Oxford Road 6, Embro, Ontario, CANADA, N0J 1J0

Office: 519.423.6232 ~ Fax: 519.423.6057 ~ Toll Free: 1.800.263.0502