Energy recovery apparatus and method of operating energy recovering apparatus

摘要

It is provided an object of the invention to recover unutilized energy as electric power by the hydraulic turbine power generation so as to reuse it. An energy recovery apparatus of the invention includes a heat storage tank provided at a lower portion of a building, a secondary system-side storage pump for pumping water from the heat storage tank and for feeding it to a group of air-conditioning loads, a first water feed pipe provided between an outlet port of the storage pump and the air-conditioning load group, a second water feed pipe for returning the water, discharged from an outlet port of the air-conditioning load group, to the heat storage tank, an expansion tank or a vacuum breaker provided at an uppermost portion of the second water feed pipe, a hydraulic turbine, which is provided on a lower portion of the second water feed pipe, and is located at such a position as to recover the potential energy of the water discharged from the air-conditioning load group, a generator driven to be rotated by a torque of the hydraulic turbine to produce electric power, an inverter connected to an output terminal of the generator so as to produce DC power, and a system connecting device which receives the DC power from the inverter, and coverts it into AC power, and supplies it to an electric motor for driving the secondary system-side storage pump.