Parker Hannifin Corporation, will be unveiling the first in a series of stand-alone cooling units at AWEA Windpower 2012, for cooling downtower power converters in 1.5 - 8.0 MW sized wind turbines. The 50 KW capacity cooling unit on display at the show, is targeted for 1.5-2.5MW sized wind turbines, and will be followed by additional models with cooling capacities of 18 - 200KW.

Parker Precision Cooling Systems has adapted its long-established two-phase evaporative cooling technology into a system that efficiently cools critical wind turbine power generation systems, with higher efficiency, safety and power density, compared to water cooling.    The stand alone cooling system is meant for down tower installation, to cool offshore and onshore new wind turbine converter systems, and also easily enablesl retrofit/upgrade of existing wind turbine converter legacy cooling systems.

The flexibility of Parker’s thermal technology has made it easy to package it into a new drop-in cooling system solution which can be located down tower adjacent to the converter or outside the tower.  Additionally, converter manufacturers can quickly adopt two-phase evaporative cooling because existing water-cooled cold plate assemblies can be replaced without any new mechanical design layout.  

 System Benefits

The Parker system’s inherent cooling efficiency benefits result in total system cost reductions of up to 15%, and/or enable up to a 33% increase in converter rated capacity using the same architecture.   Adopting the Parker two-phase evaporative cooling system, (available in capacities of 18kW, 50kW, 100kW and 200 kW) allows converter OEMs to significantly leverage existing assets, by being able to retrofit, and in fact, upgrade existing wind turbines to improve reliability and reduce power module replacement cost.  This is accomplished because the IGBTs operate at a more reliable, lower temperature year round.  No matter where the wind turbine OEM is in the development cycle, the scalable design of Parker’s “Drop in” two-phase evaporative cooling system makes it integrate with ease into new or existing wind turbine designs.     

 How two-phase evaporative cooling works

The dual-phase liquid cooling process uses a refrigerant to circulate within a sealed, closed-loop system to cool a wide range of wind turbine systems, including the generator, reactor, transformer and the converter.   The Parker system uses a small pump to deliver just enough coolant to the evaporator - usually a series sealed cold plates optimized to acquire the heat from the device(s).  In so doing, the coolant begins to vaporize maintaining a cool uniform temperature on the surface of the device being cooled.  In its evaporated state, the coolant then flows through a heat exchanger where it rejects the heat to the ambient and condenses back into a liquid, completing the cycle.

 Other Industrial Applications /Markets Served

Parker’s evaporative precision cooled system is currently being deployed in and targeted to a variety of industrial markets, including solar inverters, wind turbine converters, hybrid electric heavy equipment motor drives, grid-scale energy storage systems, and large factory-scale medium voltage motor drive applications.  

 Precision cooling systems are part of Parker Hannifin’s long established portfolio of thermal management technologies and systems for key industrial applications, with a dedicated group based in New Haven, Indiana.  For more information, please contact Parker Precision Cooling Systems at www.parkerprecisioncooling.com.