Project Description

Owned by the ‘Respect’ Group, the Alcheringa aged care home in Victoria features 75 rooms and offers a full spectrum of aged care services including residential aged care, palliative care, secure dementia and respite care. Sunnyside Lodge, a three wing residence area, anchors one end of Alcheringa. Located on the opposite end is our secure, specially designed 30 room memory support unit, Honeybee Lodge.

Project Requirements and Challenges

The project required a reliable hot water solution to service the aged care home’s 75 rooms, including an additional ring-main for the kitchen and laundry areas. The hot water solution would need to be efficient, easy to control and would replace the existing Edson LPG hot water system which was becoming unreliable and expensive to run and maintain. Due to this, it was important an immediate solution was found and installed.

Given the location of the facility, which is on the New South Wales and Victorian border, temperatures are seen to reach -5°C overnight, the solution would need to function at full capacity in low temperatures, 24hrs a day. Logistics to the project were also a consideration and challenge.

MHIAA’s Solution

After lengthy discussions with contractors, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ high efficiency Q-ton air-to water hot water system was selected for the project.

The Q-ton is an industry leading air to water heat pump that utilises natural refrigerant CO2 to store and deliver 60°C to 90°C+ hot water in even the coldest temperatures. The Q-ton heat pump draws air through an evaporator that contains CO2 Refrigerant, which absorbs the heat in the air. The two-stage compressor compresses the refrigerant under high pressure to raise its temperature, while an on-board Gas Cooler uses heat from the refrigerant to generate hot water, which is then stored in cylinders for sanitary use.

The Q-ton is highly efficient, achieving an industry leading COP of 4.3, and has the ability to deliver 30kW of output power while only requiring 7kW input at nominal conditions1. Given this, the Q-ton will offer delivering huge reductions in both running costs with the Aged Care Home anticipated to save approx. $23,000 per year on their energy bills.

Project: Alcheringa Aged Care Facility

Project Outline: Supply of sanitary hot water

Products: 1 x  30kW Q-ton System and 4 x 1000L storage tanks

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