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Industrial Water-to-Water Heat Pump
One machine to replace a boiler, a chiller, and part of your cooling tower, pulling usable heat from groundwater, sewage, or industrial waste water. Koven KASCMF twin-screw units span 367–1,852 kW across 20 models, and a 26-unit groundwater plant we supplied has run at a field-measured COP of 5.0–5.1 across four heating and cooling seasons.
Request a Project QuoteA water-to-water heat pump takes low-grade heat out of a water source on one side and delivers hot or chilled water on the other, so a single unit can do the job your boiler and chiller do today. The benefit of a true water-to-water heat pump over a boiler-plus-chiller plant is fewer machines, no on-site combustion, and the ability to recover heat you are currently throwing away. Below we show you which Koven models fit which loads, which source water each material can survive, what four seasons of field data actually look like, and where the honest limits are.
367–1,852 kW
Cooling capacity, 20 models
384–1,913 kW
Heating capacity
COP 5.0–5.1
Field-measured, 26-unit plant
R134a
Semi-hermetic twin-screw
100–25%
4-step capacity control
Your Boiler and Chiller Are Two Machines Doing One Job
In most plants a gas or oil boiler makes hot water while a separate chiller makes chilled water and dumps the condenser heat over a cooling tower. That heat you reject is the same heat the boiler is burning fuel to create, you pay for energy twice and run two machines to do it.
A water-to-water heat pump collapses both duties into one refrigerant cycle, and industry engineers put its efficiency at 2.5 to 4 times that of a boiler. Because a heat pump transfers heat instead of burning it, one water-to-water solution replaces a boiler, a chiller, and, in a simultaneous-load building, a separate heat recovery system.
The Heat-Source Independence Divide
Buyers often shop for a “heat recovery chiller” and a “water-to-water heat pump” as if they were the same machine. They are not, and the difference decides whether you get heat when you actually need it. A government HVAC reference states the rule plainly: a heat pump cycle produces one useful effect at a time, while a heat recovery cycle produces heating and cooling only simultaneously.
| Machine type | Heats with zero cooling load? | What it actually needs |
|---|---|---|
| Partial heat-recovery chiller (desuperheater) | No | Must be actively cooling; recovers only superheat |
| Full heat-recovery chiller | Usually no | Still condensing-heat recovery — needs a cooling load |
| Double-condenser (double-bundle) chiller | Usually no | Two reject paths, but not an independent heat source |
| Four-pipe simultaneous heat/cool unit | Depends on configuration | Needs a dedicated source side to heat alone |
| True water-to-water heat pump (KASCMF) | Yes | Draws heat from a source-water loop with no building cooling load |
| Industrial waste-heat heat pump | Yes | A stable low-temperature waste-heat stream |
Source: Koven water-quality & heat-recovery engineering guide, Section 17 / Table 4. We flag this because we will not describe an ordinary heat-recovery chiller as a “year-round independent heating unit” — if your project has no reliable cooling load, you need a true water-to-water heat pump, and that is what the KASCMF line is.
Its working principle is simple, transfer heat, do not burn it, but the expensive mistake is buying the wrong one of these six machines for your load. If you have simultaneous heating and cooling all year (a data-center application beside offices running 300 kW of overlap), a heat-recovery machine is efficient. If you need heat when nothing is calling for cooling, you need the source-water heat pump below, and Koven Air will not claim a recovery chiller can do that job.
That is the honest version most brochures skip: unlike a heat-recovery unit, a true water-to-water heat pump chiller heats from the source loop alone, because its evaporator draws from water rather than from a building that happens to need cooling. Confirm this against your own hourly load profile before you specify, it is the single decision that determines whether you get heat in January.
Koven KASCMF Water-to-Water Heat Pumps, 20 Models, 367–1,852 kW
The KASCMF heat pump system uses semi-hermetic twin-screw compressors with a built-in shell-and-tube heat-recovery exchanger, so hot-water recovery is part of the machine rather than a bolt-on. Single-compressor models (105.1–265.1) cover 367–926 kW of cooling; twin-compressor models (210.2–530.2) reach 1,852 kW. Every model steps capacity 100-75-50-25-0% and ships at 3PH-380V-50Hz with IP54 protection. Unlike a residential brand that hides the spec sheet and lists only 2–5 ton units, Koven Air publishes all 20 commercial water-to-water heat pump models below, because a procurement team cannot RFQ what it cannot see, and the honest move is to show the numbers.
Refrigerant & U.S. Market Compliance, read this before you specify
The KASCMF line currently runs on R134a, which has a global warming potential of 1,430, above the 700-GWP line that U.S. HFC rules now draw for several product classes. We would rather tell you this plainly than have you discover it at customs. Under 40 CFR 84.54, chillers for comfort cooling with GWP ≥ 700 are restricted from January 1, 2025, and chillers for industrial process refrigeration above −30 °C from January 1, 2026.
Because the KASCMF is a reversible machine that can also make 7/12 °C chilled water, a unit imported into the U.S. specifically for comfort cooling falls inside that restriction. For pure space-heating, district-heating, and waste-heat-recovery duty, and for export markets outside these HFC subsectors, R134a remains a working option. If your project is U.S. comfort cooling or process refrigeration, specify a low-GWP variant, and we will confirm current availability with the factory rather than ship you a compliance problem.
| Model (KASCMF) | Cooling kW | Heating kW | Rated cooling COP | Heat-recovery kW | User-side conn. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 105.1 | 367 | 384 | 6.1 | 115 | DN100 |
| 155.1 | 536 | 556 | 6.2 | 167 | DN150 |
| 220.1 | 760 | 787 | 6.3 | 236 | DN150 |
| 265.1 | 926 | 956 | 6.4 | 287 | DN200 |
| 310.2 | 1,072 | 1,113 | 6.2 | 334 | DN200 |
| 390.2 | 1,346 | 1,395 | 6.3 | 419 | DN200 |
| 480.2 | 1,678 | 1,735 | 6.3 | 521 | DN250 |
| 530.2 | 1,852 | 1,913 | 6.4 | 574 | DN250 |
Eight of the 20 catalog models shown. Rated cooling COP is machine capacity ÷ input power at rated water conditions; field system COP including pumps runs lower, at 5.0–5.1. Full 20-model table available on request.
Which Source Water Can You Use, and What It Does to the Machine
The evaporator side of a KASCMF can draw from groundwater, a closed geothermal ground loop, sewage, industrial waste water, river or lake water, seawater, cooling-water return, or data-center waste heat. In its closed-loop form this is a water-to-water geothermal heat pump; groundwater and a geothermal heat pump loop are the familiar sources, but the same Koven Air machine extends to sewage and waste water a geothermal well never reaches. A patented open-system heat pump design confirms the principle: the source can be “ground water, sea water, river water, lake water or brine.” The catch is that raw source water attacks the wrong heat-exchanger metal, and that is where most open-loop projects fail.
Field engineers say it directly on the forums: “open loops definitely require more maintenance than a closed loop system due to scaling and corrosion,” “an open loop system shouldn’t be installed without testing the water quality first,” and that water source heat pumps are just a pain to work on when they are fed raw, unfiltered water.
So Koven Air starts every project with a water analysis, then matches the exchanger material to the chemistry, never the other way around, because the trade-off between first cost and service life is decided by that one report.
The Source-Water Compatibility Envelope
This is the table no residential brochure publishes: it maps each source-water type against the water-quality limits and the exchanger material that survives it, plus the pre-treatment that gets you there.
| Source water | Key limits to check | Exchanger material | Pre-treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Closed chilled / heating loop | pH 7.5–9.0, dissolved O₂ < 5 mg/L | Copper shell-and-tube | Expansion, dosing, side-stream filter |
| Groundwater (clean) | Sand < 1/200,000, Fe < 0.2, Cl⁻ < 300 mg/L | Copper or SS304 | Cyclone desander + auto-backwash filter |
| Medium-mineralization / brackish | Cl⁻ & total dissolved solids by grade | SS304 / SS316L plate | Intermediate heat exchanger isolation |
| River / lake | Turbidity, algae, biofilm | SS plate + isolation | Screen, coarse + auto-backwash filter, biocide |
| Seawater / high-chloride | Cl⁻ far above copper/SS safe range | Titanium plate / titanium tube | Titanium loop, anti-fouling, cathodic protection |
| Sewage / reclaimed water | Fibre, grease, suspended solids | Wide-channel / anti-clog exchanger | Bar screen, fine filter, backwash + cleaning bypass |
| Industrial waste water | pH, solvents, oils, crystallization risk | Isolated; double-wall where hygienic | Intermediate HX; case-by-case chemistry review |
| Mineralization > 500 mg/L | Saturation / scaling index | Titanium or higher alloy | Softening or side-stream water treatment |
| Solid particle > 0.5 mm | Plate-channel blockage risk | Any — filter first | Sub-0.5 mm filtration before plate exchangers |
We size a water-to-water plant to the source loop first, not the nameplate. Get the groundwater temperature and the reinjection right and the field COP takes care of itself, most disappointing installs we are called to fix were open loops that skipped the water analysis.
🔧 Ready to see how a KASCMF plant compares against your current boiler-and-chiller bill?
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Measured Performance: Field COP 5.0–5.1 Over Four Heating & Cooling Seasons
Rated numbers sell; measured numbers get specified. On a 26-unit groundwater plant we supplied, each 1,200 kW unit rated COP 5.22 in cooling (18 °C groundwater) and 5.18 in heating (15 °C source), and the plant measured 5.1 cooling / 5.0 heating across four seasons including pumps. Those field figures sit inside the 5.0–7.0 band that engineers report for balanced water-source heat pump loads. Because a stable water source lets the machine consume less electricity per unit of efficient heating than an air-source unit, that stability is the whole energy-efficiency case for going water-to-water.
Buyers run one real risk here, specifying to a rated 6.4 COP they will never see in the field; because Koven Air sizes to the source loop, that gap does not become your problem. Be honest about where the number holds: it is tied to a steady ~18 °C groundwater source. Draw from colder sewage or a high supply-temperature duty and COP falls, our sewage-source project below measured 4.1 in heating from 10 °C source water. And like all sub-critical heat pumps, KASCMF supply temperatures suit modern hydronic, fan-coil and radiant loads, not the ~180 °F that legacy cast-iron radiators were designed around.
| Central plant, same building load | Water-to-water heat pump | Air-cooled chiller + fuel boiler | Water-cooled chiller + boiler + tower |
|---|---|---|---|
| On-site combustion | None | Boiler burns gas/oil | Boiler burns gas/oil |
| Condenser heat | Recovered as hot water | Rejected to air | Rejected over tower |
| Field COP (heating) | 5.0 measured | ~0.9 boiler efficiency-equivalent | ~0.9 boiler + separate chiller |
| Machines to maintain | One reversible unit | Two (chiller + boiler) | Three (chiller + boiler + tower) |
| Best-fit source | Ground/waste/sewage water | Ambient air | Tower water |
Customer Results: 44.9% Lower Annual Cost, 4-Year Reinjection Reliability
A 520,000 m² manufacturing park and its dormitories replaced dispersed air-cooled units plus oil boilers with 26 groundwater-source KASCMF-class units across two energy stations. Groundwater sits at 16–18 °C, and every drop is returned by 100% same-layer reinjection — an approach governed in the U.S. by EPA Class V injection-well rules.
−44.9% annual energy & O&M cost
Combined heating + cooling running cost fell from ¥17.45 M/yr (air-cooled + oil boiler) to ¥9.62 M/yr. Tenant capital cost dropped ~60% and O&M ~45% because no company built its own plant room. Static payback ≈ 4.5 years; annual coal-equivalent saving ≈ 6,800 t and CO₂ ≈ 18,000 t.
For a commercial park this size, operating costs of that order reduce the payback to a few years and let tenants operate production without building their own plant room. The reliability number matters as much as the cost number: four continuous heating-and-cooling seasons of 100% same-layer reinjection with no significant clogging, stable aquifer level, plant availability ~99.8%. That is the honest answer to the forum complaint that water-source machines are “a pain to work on” and a corrosion risk, they are, if you feed them unfiltered water; they are not, if the source loop is engineered. Unlike a vendor that ships a nameplate and walks away, Koven Air designs the source loop first, which is why this plant kept its rating for four years.
🔧 Get a payback estimate built on your volumes and tariff. Get a Quote Based on Your Load →
Certifications & Build Quality
Koven Air has manufactured HVACR equipment since 2007 and ships to 35 countries. The units carry CE and ISO 9001 quality-system certification, and are built and burn-in tested before they leave the plant.
QA & TRACEABILITY PROTOCOL
Every unit runs a 24-hour aging test and passes through a dedicated chiller-and-heat-pump testing laboratory before shipment, and each build is traceable through 400 recorded process points. That is the difference between a nameplate rating and a machine that holds its rating in your plant room. The hidden risk in a low-cost import is a unit that fails its first winter, so unlike suppliers who test on paper, Koven Air burns in every 1,852 kW machine before it ships, because for a district-heating application the cost of a mid-season failure dwarfs the price of the test.
✓
CE marked
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ISO-certified quality system
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20,000 m² factory
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18 standardized processes
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400-point process traceability
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24-hour aging test
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Chiller & heat-pump test lab
✓
IP54 enclosure
Procurement Guide: Sizing, Water Analysis, Lead Time & After-Sales
A reversible water-to-water machine is sized to the greater of the heating or cooling peak, then trimmed for part-load with the 4-step unloader; where heating and cooling peaks diverge sharply, we stage multiple units for turndown and redundancy. Pricing tracks the model, the source-water treatment scope, and the exchanger metal, not a single list number, so we quote against your parameters rather than post a figure that will not survive contact with your water report.
One expensive mistake here is treating a heat pump like a boiler and skipping the water report, because that is the one gap that turns into corrosion two years later. Koven Air after-sales is lifetime free technical-service guidance, with immediate response inside the warranty period and periodic training for your contractors and engineers, whether the duty is space heating or domestic hot water. Unlike a vendor that posts a list price, we quote against your parameters; what we do not do is obtain your local water-abstraction or reinjection permits, that approval path is yours, and it is often the critical-path item on an open-loop project, so start it early.
What you send us to get a real quote
The single most useful document you can provide is a raw-water analysis. It decides the exchanger material, the pre-treatment, and whether you need an intermediate loop, the three items that move both price and reliability.
Provide
Why it drives the design
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Source-water analysis (pH, conductivity, hardness, Cl⁻, SO₄²⁻, sand, mineralization, Fe/Mn, dissolved O₂)Sets exchanger material + pre-treatment + isolation
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Source temperature range & flowSets achievable COP and model size
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Peak heating & cooling loads (hourly if possible)Sets unit count, staging, redundancy
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Supply/return temperatures & terminal typeConfirms moderate-temp fit vs legacy high-temp
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Reinjection / discharge permit pathOpen-loop projects live or die on abstraction & reinjection approvals (e.g. U.S. EPA Class V UIC rules)
Engineering Design & Selection Tools
Access our technical utilities for evaluating system viability, specifying machine types, and selecting precise KASCMF models based on your project parameters.
Source-Water Suitability Checker
Evaluate groundwater, sewage, or process water parameters against system requirements.
KASCMF Water-to-Water Model Selector
Calculate and specify the exact KASCMF heat pump model based on your cooling and heating load demands.
Machine-Type Decider
Determine the optimal chiller or heat pump configuration for specific building and environmental conditions.
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