They use adiabatic coolers to minimize electrical cost for cooling and maximize cooling capacity. The water isn’t directly used as the cooling fluid. It’s just used to provide evaporative cooling to boost the efficiency of a conventional refrigeration system. I also suspect that many of them are starting to switch to CO2 based refrigeration systems which heavily benefit from adiabatic gas coolers due to the low critical temp of CO2. Without an adiabatic cooler the efficiency of a CO2 based system starts dropping heavily when the ambient temp gets much above 80F.
They could acheive the same results without using water, however their refrigeration systems would need larger gas coolers which would increase their electricity usage.
They use adiabatic coolers to minimize electrical cost for cooling and maximize cooling capacity. The water isn’t directly used as the cooling fluid. It’s just used to provide evaporative cooling to boost the efficiency of a conventional refrigeration system. I also suspect that many of them are starting to switch to CO2 based refrigeration systems which heavily benefit from adiabatic gas coolers due to the low critical temp of CO2. Without an adiabatic cooler the efficiency of a CO2 based system starts dropping heavily when the ambient temp gets much above 80F.
They could acheive the same results without using water, however their refrigeration systems would need larger gas coolers which would increase their electricity usage.