Countermeasures against the prospects of energy supply shortages and high energy consumption have become necessary, while using the Energy Shock in late 1973 as an opportunity for benefiting industry. Development of alternative energy sources, development of technology for energy saving and development of systematic utilization of existing energies with existing technology are strongly being promoted.

This paper states the present situation regarding the use of large absorption water chillers in Japan. It also describes the development effort for a new type gas direct fired dual effect absorption water chiller and optimized dual effect stearn driven absorption water chillers which relate to the development of energy saving technology. A comparision of performance for single and dual effect stearn driven and dual effect gas direct fired absorption units is listed. Then a few interesting applications for saving energy by waste heat utilization are described with illustrations.