UK – Toshiba were the worthy recipients of the  product of the year award as announced at the National ACR & Heat Pumps Awards in Birmingham last night. The winners landed the award for their SMMS-E VRF range.

The heat exchanger has been completely redesigned, which results in a 13 percent increase in surface area available for heat transfer. It provides continuous heating with no requirement to stop during defrost. This is made possible by the use of a new hot-gas bypass control.

A new approach to intelligent operation gives occupants improved comfort, energy efficiency an reliability by using the independent Pulse Motor Valves (PMV’s) to control the flow of refrigerant to each indoor unit.
Wireless commissioning allows performance data and status reports to be automatically emailed to end users or engineers. Pipe work and connectivity has been increased, giving double the previous allowable length.

Finally, as a result of the new compressors design and improved system controls, the operating temperature range has been significantly extended, and is now -5 to 46deg C for cooling operation and -25deg C in heating mode.

Finalists in the category included Business Edge – Climate Zone AT, Klimatherm-Gree – PV Centrifugal Chiller, Space Air (on behalf of Daikin Europe NV) – VRV IC i-series and Silentair Combi- AC System Combi AC System while the jury highly commended  Mitsubishi Electric City Multi YLM Range of VRF