Patent ID: 7021070

Claim:
A refrigerant cooling system comprising: an evaporator for removing heat from air to be cooled; a compressor fluidly coupled to the evaporator to receive refrigerant therefrom and to increase the pressure of the refrigerant; a condenser fluidly coupled to the compressor for receiving refrigerant from the compressor and cooling the refrigerant; an expansion valve fluidly coupled to the condenser for receiving liquid refrigerant from the condenser and for lowering the pressure of the refrigerant, the expansion valve also being fluidly coupled to the evaporator for delivering the refrigerant to the evaporator; a heat-sink coolant cooler that uses water to cool a heat-sink coolant before the heat-sink coolant passes over the condenser; a plurality of sensors for monitoring characteristics of at least two of the heat-sink coolant, the compressor load and compressor refrigerant discharge conditions; and a controller coupled to the plurality of sensors and to the heat-sink coolant cooler, the controller operable to control the severity of cooling performed by the heat-sink cooler in response to inputs from the sensors.