The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) has officially launched a HVAC Optimisation Guide.
The guide outlines 20 HVAC optimisation strategies and how they can be applied, adding that these strategies can save up to 50 per cent of total HVAC energy use, or up to 80 per cent of energy use in individual HVAC components.
It was developed through an industry–government partnership between the OEH, Energy Efficient Business (EEB) team and the Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Airconditioning and Heating (AIRAH).
As well as covering topics such as “the role of HVAC controls in reducing energy use” it identifies opportunities and presents scenarios to assist users of the guide.
One of the opportunities identified in the guide is the staging of chillers and compressors.
“The main objective of chiller staging is to match the capacity of the operating chillers to the demand of the field equipment that consumes chilled water (CHW). For optimisation, chiller sequencing must go beyond simply matching the refrigeration capacity and CHW flow rates; it must take a holistic view that considers efficiency across the full operating range for each chiller and take into account the power consumed by ancillaries including condenser water (CW) pumps and cooling tower fans,” the guide explains.
“Depending on the equipment installed and the configuration of the CHW system, it may be more efficient to operate two chillers in part-load rather than one chiller at full load. The converse may be true for other systems.”
Highlights from the guide will be published in upcoming issues of CCN Magazine.