Chilled Water Improvements
Chilled water systems are used in medium and large-sized buildings. Chiller plants act as a centralized cooling system that provides cooling for an entire building or even multiple buildings. This is because it is often more practical to centralize air conditioning equipment in one location rather than install many pieces of equipment in many different places.
Water is circulated through a chiller unit run through a heat exchanger to pull heat from the building leaving cooler air behind. Typically, water leaves the chiller at 45° F travels through the heat exchanger to lower the supply air temperature to about 55° F. This process can take up to 15% of a building’s entire energy use. There are several websites that show the best way to improve efficiency and some of those are shown below:
3 Ways To Increase Chiller Efficiency - Facilities Management Insights (facilitiesnet.com)
- Consider variable speed retrofits
- More is less: Running multiple parallel devices optimizes savings
- Increase supply temperatures
Another site shows these suggestions:
Strategies to improve chiller plant performance, efficiency | Consulting - Specifying Engineer (csemag.com)
- Chilled water distribution
- Pumping arrangements
- Chiller plant optimization
- Waterside economizer
The above articles are both long and detailed but leave out one of the most important factors to a successful chilled water system…. INSULATION!!!
Proper insulation of these pipes will help you avoid massive failures. Unconditioned spaces in hot and humid climates are of particular concern, though these practices should be applied everywhere. Because chilled water pipes operate below ambient temperatures, proper insulation can protect these pipes from moisture and condensation problems such as corrosion and mold growth. Adequate insulation can also safeguard against heat gain, which would otherwise minimize the cooling system's efficiency.
HiTHERM’s PIR365 25/50 is the perfect solution to chilled water systems insulation needs. With a best in class aged thermal conductivity of 0.165 (R-Value of 6.1 per inch), PIR365 25/50 gives you the most efficient system possible, lowering operational costs as well as extending the life of the system. By having lower thermal conductivity than our competition, less insulation thickness is required to keep the same thermal efficiency.