Seeley International is Australia’s largest air conditioning and ducted gas heating manufacturer and a global leader in developing ingenious, energy efficient cooling and heating products. Headquartered in Adelaide and with factories in Adelaide (South Australia) and Albury (New South Wales), the company was founded by Frank Seeley, AM FAICD who remains Chairman.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
SEELEY: Seeley International has been manufacturing air conditioners since 1972 and, unlike many of its competitors, designs and manufactures most of the components for its products within Australia. Seeley International is world’s leader in Evaporative Cooling solutions: with offices all over the globe (Italy, France, United Kingdom, USA, South Africa and of course Australia), the company ensures a strong level of commitment to the local markets and an everyday support to dealers and distributors. Renowned for ingenuity and innovation, Seeley International leads the market in the design and manufacture of air conditioning systems based on Evaporative Cooling technology, with award winning brand names including Breezair, Coolair, Climate Wizard and Coolerado.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
SEELEY: Seeley International proudly announces the latest model in the Climate Wizard range, the CW3. Regarded by Seeley International as the biggest air conditioning breakthrough, CW3 uses sub-wet bulb indirect evaporative cooling technology and delivers unmatched comfort levels with running costs up to 80% less to run than conventional A/C systems.
The CW3 delivers 100% fresh air while achieving low cooling temperatures comparable to DX systems. However, we don’t use any chemical refrigerants, only water and a small amount of electricity.
CW3 is in a very specific category of indirect evaporative coolers that can actually overcome the limit of the wet bulb. An indirect evaporative cooler of this type reduces the temperature of the air through a heat exchange surface, which is impervious to water.
CW3 is a sub-wet bulb cooler. The working principle is based on M-cycle. For this reason, CW3 can also be called an M-cycle cooler.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
SEELEY: Seeley International exports internationally the wide range of evaporative cooling units. Amongst direct evaporative coolers, we can name the award-winning brands Breezair and Coolair. They are particularly suitable for simple installations in big areas, such as industrial plants and commercial warehouses, where traditional air conditioning is not viable and a lot of air changes are required. They are extremely cost-effective to run and they can improve quality of air inside the buildings.
Amongst indirect evaporative coolers, we offer the premium range of Climate Wizard products, a specific type of indirect evaporative coolers that can cool below the Wet-Bulb temperature without adding any moisture to the air. These types of evaporative coolers can be used in stand alone or in conjunction with other HVAC equipment, to improve efficiency of those.
All evaporative coolers perform at their best (using the same amount of power and improving COP and Cooling Capacity) as external temperature rises, in direct contrast to refrigerated systems, which require increasing amounts of power.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
SEELEY: Despite evaporative cooling is a technology not widely known over the public, it can really be a gamechanger in the scenario we are living. Using 100% fresh outside air and never recirculating indoor air, they can drastically improve Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and avoid germs and viruses circulation.
Moreover, companies are more and more looking at adopting energy -efficient sustainable solutions, to contrast climate change and contribute to a better world. Evaporative coolers of all types only use water and electricity to run and a small amount of power. For this reason, they are also very cheap to run, which is again another interesting point for all businesses.
Companies all over the world are switching to evaporative cooling and we can find esteemed brands amongst our list of customers (Porsche, Decathlon, Heineken, just to name a few).
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
SEELEY: Since Covid-19 impacted the whole world, businesses are paying more and more attention to the quality of the air we breathe, especially in working and social environments.
Especially with the return to work after pandemics, companies are more and more interested in adopting solutions that can ensure the air is constantly renewed and diluted, pushed out of the building and drawn as fresh air.
Energy-efficiency is also high on the agenda, not just for cost-saving potential, but also because of green-credentials.
Therefore, evaporative cooling can be the perfect solution to be implemented, and it is getting traction more than ever.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2022?
SEELEY: During first Covid outbreak most buildings were largely under-occupied and existing HVAC capacity was still enough even with reduced air recirculation (or no air recirculation at all). With occupancy rates bouncing back to pre-Covid levels, it has become increasingly evident that installed capacity might not be enough to cope with new fresh air approach – or if it is, power consumption would sky-rocket. This will make emission targets way more difficult to be achieved unless target indoor temperatures can be reviewed and/or more efficient fresh air technologies become more widely adopted.
As the key trend is retrofit rather than new projects, most of the energy-saving potential comes from reducing power consumption of existing HVAC systems. More specifically, it is the fresh air component – now at increased rates to prevent Covid risk – to represent the larger share of the cooling load and therefore the best opportunity for savings. Amongst the technologies allowing to reduce impact of this fresh air component, evaporative cooling (especially in the indirect version – Climate Wizard) is quickly getting traction as a very ‘green’ solution.
As Seeley International we have witnessed growing demand for our products in this specific category, to be installed both as stand-alone solutions or – more frequently – as add-ons to new or existing refrigerated (DX) HVAC systems.