The rapid increase in cooling demand for air-conditioning worldwide brings the need for more efficient cooling solutions based on renewable energy. Seawater air-conditioning (SWAC) can provide base-load cooling services in coastal areas utilizing deep cold seawater. This technology is suggested for inter-tropical regions where demand for cooling is high throughout the year, and it has been implemented in islands with short distances from the coast and the deep sea. This paper proposes adjustments to the conventional design of SWAC plants to reduce implementation risks and costs. The approach is named high velocity SWAC and consists of increasing the excavation depth of the seawater pump station up to 20 m below the sea level, compared to 2 to 5 m in conventional SWAC projects. This allows a twofold increase in the speed of inlet pipeline seawater and cooling load of the plant. The cooling load can be expanded twofold with only 55% capital cost and 83% project costs, compared with the costs of a new system. In addition, this article shows that high velocity SWAC plants with thermal energy storage will have an important role supporting the dissemination of intermittent renewable sources of energy in regions where SWAC is a viable cooling alternative.

全世界对空调的制冷需求的快速增长，带来了对基于可再生能源的更高效制冷解决方案的需求。海水空调（SWAC）可以在沿海地区利用深冷海水提供基本负荷的制冷服务。这项技术被建议用于全年冷却需求很高的热带地区，并且已经在离海岸和深海不远的岛屿中实施。本文提出了对SWAC工厂常规设计的调整，以降低实施风险和成本。该方法称为高速SWAC，它包括将海水泵站的开挖深度增加到海平面以下20 m，而传统的SWAC项目则为2至5 m。这使进口管道海水的速度和工厂的冷却负荷增加了两倍。与新系统的成本相比，仅用55％的资本成本和83％的项目成本就可以将冷却负荷扩大两倍。此外，本文显示，具有热能存储功能的高速SWAC装置将发挥重要作用，支持在SWAC是可行的冷却替代品的地区传播间歇性可再生能源。