Energy Efficiency Solutions

Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems use an engine-generator (located on-site) to produce electricity and heat from a single fuel source. Fuel is first combusted in an internal combustion engine or gas/steam turbine and converted to electrical (or mechanical) energy. The exhaust leaving the engine is hot and contains more than half of the energy contained in the original fuel. This waste heat is recovered and used to produce steam and/or hot water. A CHP unit combine two technologies, a heating system and an electrical power generator, in one. This hybrid system allows you to use the fuel twice, first to produce electrical power and then to heat.

In situations requiring a large amount of high quality steam then a gas turbine is usually used. When a smaller amount of steam and higher quantities of hot water is required, the internal combustion engine is the technology of choice.

One attractive aspects of CHP is its ability to offset electricity demand charges. Electricity charges are made up of rate charges, which are based on the amount of electricity (kWh) used, and demand charges, which are determined on the maximum mount of power (kW) you demand during a period of time. These charges are often broken up into many portions and time segments: day/night rates, summer/winter rates. Combined heat and power allows you to significantly reduce both your electricity usage charge and your demand charge.

A CHP systems can achieve efficiencies of the order of 85%, resulting in tremendous energy savings. They often pay for themselves in 2 to 4 years. Further, if you already own suitable standby engine-generator(s), it may be incorporated in a CHP system.

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1.	Boiler System: The more efficient your boiler, the less fuel you use, which will result in lower energy bills. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, almost 60% of boilers in the United States are more than 25 years old. Replacing an older 70% efficient boiler with newer 90% efficient one, will significantly reduce energy use and carbon emissions.
	Boilers have an A to G rating for efficiency. It is always recommended that you choose a boiler that has an A rating. All "A" boilers are condensing boilers. Condensing boilers are now largely replacing earlier, conventional designs in powering domestic central heating systems. In a conventional non-condensing boiler, hot combustion gases from the burning of fuel heat water. The waste gases, which are still quite hot (180 °C-200 °C), contain significant heat, much of which is lost to the atmosphere. In a condensing boiler, the exhaust gases are cooled to the point where water vapor contained in these gases is condensed back to liquid. The result is that much energy is recovered owing to the condensation of the water vapor. Condensing boilers have the ability to deliver an estimated 12% increase in energy efficiency.
	A new class of condensing (modulating) boilers use a microprocessor to control heating system, so that maximum energy is recovered. This new breed of equipment is specially designed to condense and modulate, which enable them to operate at up to 99% thermal efficiency. This improved performance can translate to tens or hundreds of thousand of dollars of fuel savings each year.
	Using a multiple boiler systems can often be advantageous. In this system, you divide the overall heating load among two or more independently controlled boilers, and operate only the boilers necessary to meet the load at a given time. An intelligent controller continually monitors system supply temperature and determines what boiler(s) to operate to keep that temperature at or very close to a target temperature.

2.	Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems do not use a boiler to produce heat. It is a novel strategy that produce both electricity and heat from a single fuel source. Fuel is first combusted in an engine-generator (located on-site) to produce electricity (or mechanical energy). The exhaust leaving the engine-generator is hot and contains more than half of the energy contained in the original fuel. This "free" waste heat is recovered, using heat exchangers, and used to produce steam and/or hot water. A CHP unit combine two technologies, a heating system and an electrical power generator, in one. It allows you to use the fuel twice, first to produce electricity and then heat.


	One attractive aspects of CHP is its ability to offset high electricity charges, since you produce some of your electricity on-site. Electricity charges are made up of rate charges, which are based on the amount of electricity (kWh) used, and demand charges, which are determined on the maximum mount of power (kW) you demand during a period of time. These charges are often broken up into many portions and time segments: day/night rates, summer/winter rates. Combined heat and power allows you to significantly reduce both your electricity usage charge and your demand charge.
	A CHP systems can achieve efficiencies of the order of 85%, resulting in tremendous energy savings. They often pay for themselves in 2 to 4 years. Further, if you already own suitable standby engine-generator(s), it may be incorporated in a CHP system.

3.	Use Heat Recovery Equipment
	Add boiler stack economizers. An economizer is a device fitted to a boiler which saves energy by using the exhaust gases from the boiler to preheat the cold feedwater. This results in higher boiler operating efficiency, reduced fuel consumption, reduced emissions/pollutants, and reduces operating costs.
	Heat recovery systems can also be used to capture waste heat from other equipment, such as, furnaces, driers, manufacturing processes, and refrigeration equipment.
	The boiler blowdown process involves the periodic removal of water from a boiler to remove accumulated dissolved solids and/or sludge to avoid their negative impacts on boiler efficiency and performance. However, boiler blowdown wastes heat energy in the form of hot water. Much of this heat can be recovered by routing the hot expelled liquid through a heat exchanger that preheats the boiler feedwater.

4.	Minimize Losses and tuneup system
	The typical facility can reduce the fuel energy used to produce steam by 20 percent by insulating steam and condensate return lines, stopping steam leakage, and maintaining steam traps. Install pipe insulation, Insulate hot water lines. Check and repair leaks, Insulate piping and valves, Test and replace defective traps. Benefit: Reduce your boiler's natural gas use from five percent to ten percent. Simple payback is often one year or less.
	Perform scheduled boiler tune-up, maintenance, including maintenance of steam trap. Install of turbulators, oxygen trim controls, outdoor air reset controls, stack dampers, burner controls, boiler system controls.

5.	Ground source heat pumps can be quite efficient and cost effective. They transferring heat into a building from the large thermal reservoir within the ground. Heat pumps typically use four times less electrical energy to deliver an equivalent amount of heat than a direct electrical heater does. Ground source heat pump can be reversed in summer time and operate to cool the air by transferring heat from the building to the ground. They have high initial capital cost, but this is typically recouped within 5 to 10 years.
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The cooling system is typically the single largest consumer of energy in a building. If you're serious about saving energy, address your cooling costs first, since that's what uses the most electricity. In the typical commercial building, air conditioning uses more electricity than anything else. In warmer regions air conditioning can be 60-70% of your summer electric bill. Big improvement to your bottom line can be realized by targeted, high-impact, changes to your cooling system.
Chiller
1.	Replace older (15+ years) chillers. They are wasteful of energy. Current chillers use 30-50% less electricity than those older than 15-year. Options include: High-efficiency centrifugal drive with Variable Speed Drive, Absorption chiller, fired with Waste Heat from a Combined Heat and Power system Absorption chiller, fired with heat from a boiler, natural gas/propane, or solar energy Engine-driven chiller, Gas/steam turbines driven chiller. Even if your chiller is not old, you could benefit from switching to a newer, higher efficiency chiller. Newer centrifugal chillers with Variable Speed Drive compressor provides high part-load efficiency and a significant reduction in your energy costs. Electrical chillers are the single largest electrical load (and energy costs) in many commercial/industrial facilities. Absorption Chillers and Engine-driven Chillers use alternative fuel (Natural gas, Propane, etc), and can be an attractive alternatives to electrical chillers where electricity costs are high. Engine driven chillers also produce high-temperature waste heat, which can be recovered and used in your heating system. Absorption chiller are powered by heat, and is ideal where "free" waste heat from a Combined Heat and Power system is available.

2.	Retrofit existing chiller system with Variable Frequency Drive (VFD). This would significantly reduce your chiller’s electrical energy usage, and could result in a 30% efficiency improvement. Variable Frequency Drives allow you can match the performance of compressor motors, cooling tower motors, and pump motors with actual cooling demand. Using VFDs with a centrifugal chiller will provide the most efficient part load performance. The biggest payback occurs when VFDs are focused on the largest motors with the longest run times.
	Choose the method of cooling your chiller condenser wisely. Water removes heat from the condenser far more efficiently than air, and consumes less electricity. However, air cooled condenser offer the opportunity to assist summer ventilation and winter supplement heating. Use a water-cooled condenser if (a) heat recovery is not wanted or impractical, (b) ambient temperatures generally exceed 95°F (air cooled condenser gives less cooling on hot summer days), (c) water is available and of good quality, or (d) ambient air is cannot be used because it is polluted with large dust and dirt particles.

3.	Investigate the use of a hybrid chiller system. Electricity charges are made up of the amount of electricity (kWh) used, and maximum mount of power (kW) you demand during a period of time. These charges can vary depending on day/night and summer/winter. A hybrid system uses electrical chillers when electricity rates are low and an alternative fuel chillers (engine-driven or absorption chiller), which are powered by natural gas or fuel oil, when electricity rates are high. Investigate the use of off-peak thermal storage: production of ice or chilled water at night, and used for cooling during the day.

	These options should be evaluated based on return on investment.

Air Handler
1.	Variable Frequency Drives can be used to match the speed of air handler motors with actual cooling demand. They provide the biggest payback when they are focused on the largest motors and those with the longest run times.

2.	Energy recovery ventilators (Rotary Enthalpy Wheel, Fixed Plate, Heat Pipe, Run Around Loop, Thermosiphon) can recover significant amounts of the energy that would otherwise be wasted.
	Enthalpy plates..a air to air heat exchanger built with a humidity permeable material. Polymer fixed-plate countercurrent energy recovery ventilators. These heat exchangers can be both introduced as a retrofit for increased energy savings and fresh air as well as an alternative to new construction. energy recovery will effectively reduce the required heating/cooling capacity of the system. The percentage of the total energy saved will depend on the efficiency of the device (up to 90%) and the latitude of the building. A result of an ERV is that the HVAC install's initial cost is lower and the overall energy consumed by the building is lower as well.
	Also air-side/water-side economizer can also have a big impact on the energy used.
	Minimize Losses: Perform regular maintenance. Insulate chilled water lines. Properly insulating air ducts, especially those located in unconditioned spaces, and seal all joints. Uninsulated or poorly insulated ducts in unconditioned spaces can lose through conduction 10%–30% of the energy used to heat and cool.

	These options should be evaluated based on return on investment.

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Energy Conservation

Full lighting retrofits of the tower and underground garages, which dropped wattage consumption in half per fixture and reduced light replacement costs dramatically; addition of LEDs on all exit signs; installation of window filming to resist radiant heat gains.

Your electricity charges are made up of (1) rate charges, and (2) demand charges. Rate charges are what you pay per unit of electricity (kWh). Demand charges are based on the maximum mount of power (kW) you demand at a period of time. These charges are often broken up into many portions and time segments (e.g. day and night rates, summer and winter rates).

Variable Speed Drives

Fans, pumps, refrigeration equipment and compressors do not need to operate at full power all the time. Variable
frequency drives (VFD) control the speed of the motor that drives this equipment so that the motor's speed is matched to the actual equipment load, allowing the motor to be continually adjusted. Electric motors usually run on a constant flow of energy, but an adjustable speed drive can vary the motor’s energy output to match the load. This achieves energy savings ranging from 3 to 60 percent, depending on how the motor is used. Motor coils made of superconducting materials can also reduce energy losses.

Many industries use compressed air for sand blasting, painting, or other tools. Optimizing compressed air systems by installing variable speed drives, along with preventive maintenance to detect and fix air leaks, can improve energy efficiency 20 to 50 percent.