Baselining system efficiency

Grundfos Cooling as a Service submits patent application for algorithm to establish energy efficiency baseline of chiller plants

Efficiency is the key characteristic to compare when understanding if energy can be saved in a chilled water system. The new algorithm from Grundfos Cooling as a Service make it faster, easier, and simpler to establish efficiency measures.

Issues solved
When power consumption is not available for a chilled water system the bare minimum of information is missing. No power consumption is a serious roadblock to establish the efficiency

When the cooling load is missing the second half of the information needed to establish the efficiency is missing. With the new algorithm this is no longer a roadblock!  

The algorithm behind LINKbeta use detailed power consumption data and information about the chilled water system design to estimate cooling load. The efficiency can be calculated from the power consumption and the estimated cooling load.  

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Hazzles solved
Measurements require calibrated sensors, recording of the sensor signals and storage of the data. Not all sensors are equally difficult to manage. Measuring electrical signals is quite robust where flow, pressure and temperature is more delicate. The algorithm behind LINKbeta reduce the hazzle by using electrical measurements only.

For well instrumented systems, time series data needed to calculate efficiency can typically be found in the control- or BMS system. In some cases, the chilled water system efficiency can even be read directly from here. When this is the case, all that is needed is to understand what measurements is behind the efficiency calculation.

We have seen systems where the data is a bit more scattered, and export of several sensor readings must be used and wrangled to get to the efficiency number we are after.

Our "Consult" Solution removes this hazzle by using one time series only.

When the system is not equipped with data acquisition there are numerous generic IoT solutions available in the market. A solution like this can be tailored to measure what you need. If you are used to setup IoT solutions it should be possible to tailor.  
Consult is dedicated for Chilled water system power readings and no tailoring or interpretation of installation instruction is needed.

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Act now
If you do not already know the efficiency of your chilled water system, now is a good time to act when it is faster easier and simpler to establish.

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Knowledge about energy consumption can be achieved in several ways. You can read more about the options in this article:

https://caas.grundfos.com/post/do-you-know-the-energy-consumption-of-your-chilled-water-system-article

Principles of calculating the chilled water system efficiency is described in this webinar recording:

https://caas.grundfos.com/post/chiller-water-system-benchmark-webinar-recording

Christian Rasmussen, Head of Technology, Grundfos Cooling as a Service

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-rasmussen-sustainably-cool/

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