Today's systems are designed to meet stricter environmental, indoor air potential and user requirements. Many of the gains in Hvac law efficiency have come as the ensue of improvements in the operating efficiency of key law components. Other gains are the ensue of the use of technologies that are either new, or new to the Hvac field. Even the use of computer-aided manufacture tools have helped law engineers manufacture Hvac systems that accomplish more efficiently.
Although there are many individual advances that have helped to improve Hvac law operating efficiency, much of the allembracing revision can be attributed to five key factors:
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- The improvement of low kW/ton chillers;
- The use of high-efficiency boiler control systems;
- The application of direct digital control (Ddc) systems;
- The use of energy-efficient motors; and,
- The matching of variable frequency drives to pump, fan and chiller motors.
For years, construction owners were satisfied with the carrying out and efficiencies of chillers that operated in the range of 0.8 to 0.9 kW/ton when new. As they age, actual operating efficiencies fall to more than 1.0 kW/ton at full load.
Today, new chillers are being installed with full load-rated efficiencies of 0.50 kW/ton, a near 50 percent increase. Equally impressive are the part-load efficiencies of the new generation of chillers. Although the operating efficiency of nearly all older chillers rapidly falls off with decreased load, the operating efficiency of new chillers does not drop off nearly as quickly.
Chiller manufacture changes
Several manufacture and carrying out changes have helped improve chiller performance. To improve the heat change characteristics of the chillers, manufacturers have increased the size of the units' heat exchangers. Electromechanical control systems have been replaced by microprocessor-based electronic controls that supply greater precision, reliability and flexibility. variable frequency drives control the speed of the compressor, resulting in an increase in part-load performance.
Increased vigor efficiency is not the only benefit of the new generation of construction chillers; these chillers offer best refrigerant containment. Although older chillers routinely may have lost 10 percent to 15 percent of the refrigerant fee per year, new chillers can limit losses to less than 0.5 percent. Lower leak rates and best purge systems sacrifice the quantity of non-condensable gasses found in the refrigerant law -- a key factor in maintaining chiller carrying out over time.
Another vital improvement is in boiler operation: the change of pneumatic and manual controls with microprocessor-based systems. As a rule of thumb, the systems can be imaginable to accomplish vigor savings of 5 percent to 7 percent over approved pneumatic-based systems.
Microprocessor-based control systems accomplish their savings primarily as the ensue of their potential to modulate the boiler's carrying out more accurately than pneumatic-based systems. By modulating the boiler's carrying out accurately, the systems help to sound the proper fuel-to-air ratio and track the load placed on the boiler by the Hvac system.
Microprocessor-based systems offer several supplementary advantages, together with remote monitoring and operating capabilities, automated control sequences, monitoring of steam flow, and reduced maintenance costs. One way the systems can help sacrifice maintenance costs is through their potential to sound proper fuel-to-air ratio. By maintaining the proper ratio, the systems sacrifice the rate at which soot collects on boiler tubes, thus decreasing the frequency of required tear down and cleaning. Keeping the boiler tubes clean of soot also helps to improve the thermal efficiency of the boiler.
Direct digital controls
A major turn in the Hvac field is the allembracing implementation of direct digital controls (Ddc). Introduced more than 15 years ago, Ddc systems have become the industry thorough for control systems manufacture today. With the potential to supply literal, and literal, control of temperature and air and water flows, the systems have widely replaced pneumatic and galvanic control systems.
Ddc systems help construction owners save vigor in several ways. Their accuracy and precision nearly eliminate the control problems of offset, overshoot, and hunting commonly found in pneumatic systems, resulting in best regulation of the system. Their potential to rejoinder to a nearly unlimited range of sensors results in best coordinated control activities. This also allows the systems to accomplish more complex control strategies than could be performed with pneumatic controls. Finally, their simple or automated calibration ensures that the control systems will accomplish as designed over time, with tiny or no loss of accuracy.
Ddc systems also offer several other advantages. Because the control strategies are software-based, the systems can be surely modified to match changes in occupant requirements without costly hardware changes. Ddc systems also are ideal for applications that benefit from remote monitoring and operation.
Energy-efficient motors
Today's Hvac systems are development use of energy-efficient motors. Energy-efficient motors offer a moderate but vital increase in full-load operating efficiency over thorough motor designs. For example, an energy-efficient 10 hp motor operates at about 93 percent efficiency; a thorough motor of the same size is typically rated at 88 percent. Similarly, a 50 hp energy-efficient motor is rated at practically 94 percent efficiency in dissimilarity to the 90 percent efficiency rating of a 50 hp thorough motor.
This increase in operating efficiency accompanies a first-cost increase for the motors. How rapidly this supplementary first cost is recovered depends on two factors: the loading of the motor, and the estimate of hours the motor is operated per year.
The closer the motor is operated to its full-load rating and the greater the estimate of hours per year the motor is operated, the quicker the first-cost differential is recovered. For most applications where the motor is run continuously at or near full load, the payback duration for the supplementary first cost is typically in the middle of three and six months.
The mixture of constant loading and long hours of carrying out have made Hvac applications well-suited for the use of energy-efficient motors. Energy-efficient motors commonly are found driving centrifugal circulation pumps and law fans. With these loads, the 4 percent or 5 percent increase in the electrical efficiency of the drive motor translates to a vital vigor savings, particularly when the systems control 24 hours per day, year round.
A side benefit of energy-efficient motor manufacture is its higher power factor. Expanding the power factor of a drive motor reduces the current draw on the electrical system, frees supplementary distribution capacity and reduces distribution losses in the system. Although Expanding the power factor isn't enough of a benefit to illustrate the cost differential of the higher efficiency motor, it's an leading consideration, particularly for large users of electricity where law capacity is limited.
Although the motors have demonstrated themselves to be very cost-effective in new applications, their use in existing applications is a tiny more difficult to justify. In most instances, the cost to replace an existing, operating motor with one of higher efficiency will not be recovered for five to 10 years or longer.
Of the improvements in Hvac systems that have helped to increase operating efficiency, variable frequency drives have had the most dramatic results. Applied to law components fluctuating from fans to chillers, the drives have demonstrated themselves to be very victorious in reducing law vigor requirements during part-load operation. And with most systems operating at part-load capacities 90 percent or more of the time, the vigor savings produced by variable frequency drives rapidly recover their investment, typically within one to two years.
In general, the larger the motor, the greater the savings. As a rule of thumb, nearly any Hvac law motor 20 hp and larger can benefit from the facility of a variable frequency drive.
Variable frequency drive applications
Variable frequency drives yield their savings by varying the frequency and voltage of the motor's electrical supply. This dissimilarity is used to sacrifice the operating speed of the tool it controls to match the load requirements. At reduced operating speed, the power draw of the drive motor drops off rapidly.
For example, a centrifugal fan, when operated at 75 percent flow, draws only about 40 percent of full-load power. At 50 percent flow, the power requirement for the fan decreases to less than 15 percent of full-load power. While approved control systems, such as damper or vane control, also sacrifice the vigor requirements at partial flow, the savings are significantly less.
Another area where variable frequency drives have improved the operating efficiency of an Hvac law is with centrifugal pumps found in hot and chilled water circulation systems. Typically, these pumps supply a constant flow of water to concluding units. As the question for heating or cooling water decreases, the control valves at the concluding units throttle back. To keep the pressure in the law constant, a bypass valve in the middle of the supply and return systems opens. With the flow rate remaining nearly constant, the load on the pump's galvanic drive also remains nearly constant.
Variable frequency drives regulate the pressure in the law in response to varying demands by slowing the pump. As with centrifugal fans, the power required by the pumps falls off as the load and speed are decreased. Again, because most systems control well below manufacture capacity 90 percent of the time, the savings produced by reduced speed carrying out are significant, typically recovering the cost of the unit in one to two years.
Chiller loads
A third application for variable frequency drives is centrifugal chillers. Chillers are sized for peak cooling loads, although these loads occur only a few hours per year.
With approved control systems that close vanes on the chiller inlet, chiller efficiency falls off significantly during part-load operation. When variable frequency drives are applied to these chillers, they regulate the carrying out of the chiller by reducing the speed of the compressor. The ensue is near full-load operating efficiency over a very wide range of cooling loads. This increase in part-load efficiency translates into a 15 percent to 20 percent increase in the chiller's seasonal efficiency.
Energy conservation isn't the only benefit of variable frequency drives. A strain is placed on an galvanic motor and the mechanical law it drives every time a pump, fan or chiller is started at full-line voltage: Motor winding becomes heated, belts slip, drive chains stretch and high-pressure is advanced in circulation systems. variable frequency drives sacrifice these stresses by starting systems at reduced voltages and frequencies in a soft start, resulting in increased motor and tool life.
Finally, the most leading element in an energy-efficient Hvac law is how the law is operated. No matter how sophisticated the system, or how allembracing its energy-conserving features, the system's carrying out depends upon the way in which it's operated and maintained. Operating personnel must be properly trained in how best to use the law and its features. Maintenance personnel must be trained and adequate with the proper tools to keep the law operating in the way it was designed. Maintenance cannot be deferred.
Energy-efficient Hvac systems offer the facility boss the potential to improve law carrying out while reducing vigor requirements. But they benefit construction owners only as long as they are taken care of. If facility managers pick to ignore maintenance requirements, they may soon find systems malfunctioning to the point where they have surely increased the requirement for energy.
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