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Chiller Staging: District Cooling Guide

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20 views

Chiller Staging: District Cooling Guide

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Qdlm Knoc
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Chapter 3.

fm Page 14 Monday, July 29, 2013 2:58 PM

© ASHRAE (www.ashrae.org). For personal use only. Additional reproduction, distribution, or


transmission in either print or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAE’s prior written permission.

District Cooling Guide

peak loads and the coincident peak load of the entire system. This is not typical since it is
not advisable to lose total plant capacity when a unit of production fails. Where plants are
operated by highly qualified, trained staff or by district-energy providers, implementing
proper preventive maintenance by planning ahead of peak time is recommended, thus miti-
gating the risk of lost capacity if the plant does not have planned redundancy.
Similarly, the oversizing of units of production, such as cooling tower cells, will
assist in overcoming any operation issue resulting from a tower failure or a tower under-
going maintenance. Under normal operating conditions, this oversizing improves chiller
efficiency by providing lower entering condenser-water temperature.

CHILLER STAGING
Staging constant-speed (CS) chillers (i.e., no VFDs) in a chiller plant that utilizes
supply temperature reset, works best if the leaving-water temperature is reset as low as
possible to ensure chillers are fully loaded before starting the next chiller. This will
reduce operating chiller efficiency for that period of time, but the total plant energy
remains less than starting another chiller and its auxiliaries. Chillers must be staged off
conservatively to avoid staging back on too quickly, causing excessive wear and tear on
chillers and starters, so the manufacturer typically adds an antirecycle timer in the control
sequence to limit the number of starts and stops in a certain time frame
For plants with variable-speed (VS) chillers, the most efficient plant operation has to
be analyzed based on chiller make and model necessary to meet a certain load criteria
since it might be more energy efficient to operate three chillers at low load and low speed
(33%) than one chiller at full load (100%). This is true because most VS chillers operate
more efficiently at part loads above 30%, compared to a constant speed chiller at 100%
loading.
Proper sequencing chillers in a DCP plays a vital role in reducing energy costs and
improving plant COP. The most efficient chiller sequence takes advantage of the type of
chiller employed in a plant and the way chillers unload or modulate to meet the load. The
sequence of operating single-stage chillers varies from those with multistage or modulat-
ing type compressors. Sequencing will also vary when a hybrid plant uses both absorption
and centrifugal chillers.
Single-stage chillers are sequenced on and off depending on the cooling load, which
is usually in response to return-water temperature or flow in the secondary (distribution
loop) compared to the primary (chiller loop) side, depending on the pumping configura-
tion. Since the majority of DCPs have identically sized chillers, it does not matter which
one operates first or second, except for maintaining the same equivalent operating hours;
however, if a plant consists of different types or sizes, there are advantages to starting the
smaller and more efficient chillers first. Where multistage chillers are used, unloading
takes place by disabling a chiller stage.
In applications where chiller types are different, such as centrifugal and screw chill-
ers, the chillers should be switched off at the minimum-acceptable load condition that the
chiller manufacturer recommends. Where thermal storage is applied, it is recommended
to operate chillers at their best efficiency point and divert the excess load to storage to
optimize their operation and efficiency of the plant. This is more of a trickle charge than a
well-defined charge mode. When several centrifugal/screw chillers in a plant are oper-
ated, it is normally advisable to start with the smaller size chillers first. If the chillers are
the same size, always attempt to have all chillers share the load and operate with the same
loading percentage instead of different loadings. It is also a good idea to load each chiller

3.14

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