Carrier adds chilled water optimiser
6th August 2017
USA: Carrier has extended its ChillerVu plant control system to include a chilled water system optimiser.
The new optimiser is said to extend control efficiencies beyond the chiller plant and improves the efficiency of the entire chilled water system, including air handling units, fan coils, and other chilled water distribution equipment. Based on laboratory and field tests, Carrier maintains that adding the optimiser to a building’s chilled water system can yield energy savings in the range of 3% to 15% compared to non-optimized systems.
The new optimiser solution consists of an i-Vu controller, a factory-engineered, control algorithm, and a pre-configured energy dashboard for the i-Vu building automation system that allows building managers to monitor and analyse the energy performance of their system in real-time. Once installed, the optimiser is said to intelligently manage the chiller plant’s chilled water and condenser water supply temperature set points to provide optimal energy usage, all while maintaining occupant comfort in the building.
The new optimiser is the latest product to be added to Carrier’s line of chiller solutions. In addition to high-efficiency chillers with factory integrated i-Vu controls, Carrier also offers the Carrier ChillerVu plant system manager, which is said to provide efficient, automatic control over all aspects of a chiller plant, coordinating the control of chillers, pumps and towers into a finely tuned, cohesive system. The new optimiser can then be added as an overlay on top of the ChillerVu manager, adding full system optimisation to the entire chilled water production and distribution system. Plants with Carrier’s 19, 23 and 30 series chillers are fully supported, as are plants with non-Carrier chillers.
The new optimiser is also said to interface seamlessly with existing plant controls and equipment, regardless of brand. Because the optimiser works with the equipment and controls already in place, costly system upgrades, pre-installation plant analysis and system modelling are not required prior to deployment.
It can also be used on plants of varying size, up to a maximum of eight chillers, and can be configured to optimise the chilled water side alone, the condenser water side alone, or both, depending on the building’s needs. In addition, the optimiser’s self-learning algorithm adapts to changes in environmental conditions or equipment performance, helping to optimise energy savings and occupant comfort over varying equipment and environmental profiles. The optimiser is also scalable, allowing additional chilled water distribution equipment to be added easily.
