Carrier invests €12 million in next-generation HVAC testing facility

The company is expanding its research and development (R&D) capacity for high-performance cooling and heating technologies aimed at data centres, industry and large commercial buildings.

Carrier says the investment is driven by decarbonisation policies, EcoDesign efficiency thresholds and the ongoing F-Gas revision; as Europe’s market accelerates towards electrification and lower-impact refrigerants.

Nicolas Fonte, Director, Systems Engineering – Carrier Climate Solutions Europe, says the new testing facility expands the engineering team’s ability to test and validate chillers and heat pumps for very wide and most critical operating conditions.

“This new equipment enables us to validate performance with high precision of next-generation chillers and large heat pump platforms, supporting customers’ requests for future infrastructures,” he says.

The test room will provide extended testing capabilities, including:

• Air-cooled chiller up to 3,200 kW
• Air source heat pump up to 1,500 kW
• Water source Chiller / heat pump up to 6,000 kW
• Ambient conditions from −20°C to +60°C with humidity control
• Water flow rate up to 1,600 m³/h.

A recent report by MECLA (the Materials and Embodied Carbon Leaders’ Alliance) found that services in data centres account for up to 60% of the upfront embodied carbon of the asset.

With concentrated growth of data centres in European hubs expected to add 13 GW of new supply by 2030, the new facility will strengthen the company’s industrial and R&D capabilities.

“The combination of higher test capacity and advanced environmental control let us validate performance with zero tolerance, bring solutions to market faster and give customers the confidence to move ahead on high-efficiency cooling and heating for data centres, industry and district heating,” says Bertrand Rotagnon, Carrier’s Executive Director, Commercial Business Line & Data Centres Europe.

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