HFC REFRIGERATION FOR THE NEW FRENCH LOUVRE-LENS MUSEUM

The Louvre-Lens, a new branch of the prestigious Paris Louvre museum has been built in Lens (Northern France). HFC-134a chillers have been installed to meet stringent requirements for a constant indoor temperature and humidity, in order to ensure the preservation of the sensitive art works in the exhibition and storage areas.

The museum is composed of five interconnected buildings, with an exhibition area of 6000 m2 where 800 important art works can be exhibited, and is expecting around 500,000 visitors annually.

A museum highlight is a 3000 m2 large "Galerie du Temps", with a volume of around 20,000 m3, in which 220 masterpieces from different periods of art history are presented.

Taking into account the size and the volume of the exhibition areas, 60 Air Handling Units (AHU) have been installed, which are filtering air and maintaining optimal humidity and temperature in the museum's galleries, storage rooms and restoration workshops.

Part of the AHU have energy recovery components, such as plate heat exchangers (to recover heat from the exhaust air and to warm incoming air) or water heat-recovery coils.

Source: Die Kaelte (in German – requires subscription)