Midea Building Technologies Unveils Advanced Smart Flexible Compressor Plant, Empowering Hospital后勤 Transformation with Domestic Chiller Innovation
Driven by the new healthcare reform, public hospitals have gradually transitioned from relying on revenue growth through pharmaceuticals, consumables, medical devices, and diagnostic tests to focusing on obtaining high-quality returns through healthcare services, with quality and efficiency as the key engines for enhancing performance. In this context, leveraging digital transformation to improve the service quality and management level of public hospitals has become an imperative requirement for contemporary smart management.
However, while most hospitals focus on data-driven clinical management, a vast yet inconspicuous area is often overlooked by administrators. Hospital logistics, which subtly influences the efficiency, quality, and stability of modern hospitals, also heavily relies on digital support.
Chen Zhenguang, Executive Director of The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University Guizhou Hospital, once cited an example during a speech at Longli County People’s Hospital: Before the implementation of refined management across The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University Guizhou Hospital, the hospital’s daily electricity bill exceeded RMB 60,000. However, with targeted interventions and enhanced intelligent smart management of logistical operations, this cost could be reduced to nearly RMB 30,000, representing a 50% decrease.
In other words, electricity costs alone can save the hospital tens of millions of yuan annually.
The case of Guizhou Hospital, the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, is not an isolated one. In fact, a large number of hospitals have joined the intelligent transformation of their logistics operations in recent years. Meanwhile, this trend has attracted significant corporate investment. Midea Building Technologies stands out as one of the leading providers of smart hospital logistics solutions.
Compared to existing smart hospital facility management enterprises on the market, Midea Building Technologies holds two advantages that place its competitors far behind: first, the integration of digital and intelligent hardware and software; second, its core technologies.
As a state-of-the-art piece of equipment in the field of central air conditioning for large-scale water systems, centrifugal chillers operate on the principle of using high-speed rotating centrifugal impellers to compress refrigerant. This process enables the refrigerant to circulate between liquid and gaseous states through four stages—compression, condensation, throttling, and evaporation—ultimately removing heat to achieve cooling. Due to the exceptionally high technical barriers, the domestic centrifugal chiller market was once monopolized by foreign brands for many years.
At the end of the last century, Chongqing General Industry Factory developed and manufactured China’s first centrifugal chiller, ushering in the “era of localization” for centrifugal chillers. Subsequently, Midea and Chongqing General Industry established a joint venture. Leveraging their technological advantages in large-scale chillers, particularly centrifugal units, they achieved a qualitative breakthrough in the design and manufacturing standards of large water-cooled chillers in China.
Today, after decades of development, Midea Building Technologies’ Chongqing factory has iterated its initial technologies multiple times, launched the specialized water-chiller brand “Kunyu,” and applied its solutions across sectors such as infrastructure, shopping malls, and hospitals.
At the recent inauguration ceremony for the new workshop, Di Yanqiang, Professional Deputy Chief Engineer of China Academy of Building Research Co., Ltd. and Chief Scientist of the National Key R&D Programs during the 13th and 14th Five-Year Plan periods, announced the results of the scientific and technological appraisal organized by the China Machinery Industry Federation. The expert appraisal committee, led by two academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, evaluated Midea Building Technologies’ “High-Efficiency, High-Reliability Integrated Magnetic Levitation Variable Frequency Centrifugal Chiller” and “Key Technologies and Applications of Global, All-Time Coordinated Optimization Control and Panoramic Smart Operation and Maintenance for Environmental Control Systems” as reaching an “internationally leading” level.
Specifically, the “High-Efficiency and High-Reliability Integrated Electromechanical-Magnetic Levitation Variable Frequency Centrifugal Chiller” enhances the operational stability of the magnetic levitation compressor system, reduces the frequent start-stop rate of the unit under low-load conditions, achieves controllability of temperature rise and temperature uniformity for high heat flux density components, and improves the thermal protection performance of the centrifugal chiller.
"Key Technologies and Applications of Global, All-Time Coordinated Optimization Control and Panoramic Smart O&M for Environmental Control Systems" have effectively improved the overall energy efficiency of environmental control systems, building environment comfort, and system operation and maintenance efficiency, while achieving long-life, high-efficiency product operation.
Currently, many hospitals have purchased centrifugal chillers from Midea Building Technologies, which have been widely applied in areas such as indoor cooling and data center temperature control. Meanwhile, Midea Building Technologies is continuously optimizing its related products to better suit the hospital scenario.
Revisiting the Integration of Digital-Intelligent Hardware and Software. To assist more hospitals in achieving top-level design for smart hospitals, Midea Healthcare leverages the iBUILDING platform to integrate its five business segments internally while maintaining high-throughput data interfaces externally, enabling connectivity with other or existing hospital systems. This approach addresses key pain points such as the lack of top-level design for smart hospitals, ambiguous design standards, and information silos.
In the realm of HVAC engineering, Midea Building Technologies not only addresses the fact that hospitals’ energy consumption per square meter can exceed that of conventional buildings by 30%–50%, but also provides hospital administrators with real-time indoor temperature monitoring, leveraging big data to achieve real-time, refined management of hospital energy consumption.
As emerging scenarios such as hospitals remain in the nascent stage of market development, the demand for water-cooled chillers is lower than that in traditional sectors like infrastructure. Therefore, while continuously expanding production capacity, Midea Building Technologies is also strengthening the “flexibility” feature to meet the diverse chiller needs of various customers.
On November 28, Midea Building Technologies’ high-end intelligent flexible compressor production workshop in Chongqing was officially completed. After five months of “revitalization,” the factory has achieved a 30% increase in production efficiency, a 20% reduction in delivery lead time, an 18% shortening of the R&D cycle, and a 15% improvement in comprehensive resource utilization. While achieving in-house manufacturing of core precision components, the new workshop is expected to reach an annual production capacity of 4,000 units, representing a 60% increase in capacity.
It is worth noting that Midea not only leverages its industrial expertise to help clients such as hospitals and infrastructure projects achieve energy savings, but also leads by example, striving to integrate “green and low-carbon” principles into every detail of its manufacturing processes.
Specifically, the workshop optimizes its energy structure and enhances energy efficiency through measures such as photovoltaic power generation, energy storage, DC power distribution, and flexible energy consumption, thereby achieving energy conservation and emission reduction. Carbon emissions from the new workshop are precisely managed, resulting in a significant annual reduction in carbon footprint and production-related environmental pollution, while energy utilization efficiency has increased by 15%. Meanwhile, leveraging measures such as natural daylighting has substantially raised the proportion of green electricity usage, enabling green, low-carbon development while reducing operational costs by 15%.
“In the future, in addition to continuing to advance toward a diversified trend of high efficiency, energy conservation, and variable frequency in technology, we will also comprehensively apply digital and intelligent technologies in manufacturing. By leveraging advanced, intelligent, green, and flexible production capabilities, we will work hand in hand with our partners to co-create sustainable smart spaces,” said Li Gefeng, General Manager of Midea Building Technologies’ Water Chiller Products Division.
Leveraging “Kunyu,” its professional water chiller brand, Midea will continuously enhance its independent innovation and in-house R&D and manufacturing capabilities in core technologies, further driving the high-quality development of China’s domestic water chiller industry and empowering a myriad of industries across China and the world in the future.