Since then, Daikin has developed the VRV®’s operational scope and performance to a point where it is now recognised throughout the industry as the ‘benchmark’ in commercial air conditioning.

The first great leap forward in system development came in 1990 when Daikin incorporated inverter control into its heat pump VRV®, the advent of inverter capacity control increasing system flexibility and efficiency ‘at a stroke’ by enabling compressor output to be modulated to match the cooling or heating demand of the conditioned space.

In 1991 with the introduction of the first heat recovery VRV®, extended the following year by the Hi-VRV® system, which also incorporated fresh air supply and computerised system management.

The need to phase out CFC refrigerant R-22 refrigerant began to concern the market and after considerable research and component redesign, Daikin introduced its fully optimised, HCFC R-407C system, a heat recovery model appearing in 2001. Perceived by Daikin solely as an interim solution to the refrigerant problem, the R-407C VRV® nevertheless, represented a valuable medium term step towards an eventual move away from HCFCs.

Toshiba SMMS range: unbeatable performance
With innovative, sophisticated Toshiba technology the SMMS system ensures extraordinary flexibility in any application. The most advanced heat pump system on the market offers a COP of 4.25 in its 22.4kW size. Units are available with capacities from 14 to 135 kW in cooling and from 16 to 150kW in heating, and their exceptional efficiency permits a reduction of up to 50% in annual energy consumption.

Daikin VRV III-HR
This Unit is ideal for use in commercial offices, apartment stores, restaurants, hotels, and a wide range of public sector buildings, offers important benefits in energy efficiency and cost savings to installers and their end user clients.

Among its many new features is the ability to connect up to 64 outdoor units to a single outdoor unit in increments of 2hp up to 48hp). Outdoor unit modules can be configured on a combined multi basis between 18 and 48hp or in a stand-alone version from 8 to 16hp. Operating range is wide at -50ºC to 430ºC in cooling and -200ºC to 1505ºC in heating.

Mitsubishi Electric’s City Multi YHM
The compact range of R410A condensing units has COPs of up to 6.1. The new range boasts an average 45% in footprint over previous models (for the 14 to 18hp units), a 16% reduction in weight and has 13 models in its line-up.

This range includes models which can directly replace old R22 units. “We have sold over 75,000kW of comfort cooling R22 systems and many of these systems are ready for an upgrade. Installing our YHM with its ‘replace’ function can help reduce power consumption by up to 60% leading to a significant reduction in
CO2 emissions”, explained Phillip Ord, Product Marketing Manager.