CHILLERS
Keep cool when temperatures soar
Chris Smith, head of temperature control for Aggreko Northern Europe off ers advice to managers seeking to optimise cooling performance and avoid system breakdowns this summer.
S
ummer is here, putting pressure on HVAC and refrigeration plant, such as air conditioners, chillers and air handling systems, as they face the challenge of ensuring reliable cooling as temperatures rise. Hotter weather can overburden HVAC and refrigeration plant. For every extra degree in ambient temperature over a designed specifi cation, the cooling kilowatt output of equipment reduces. This can make it diffi cult to maintain required temperatures and kilowatt cooling capacity during warmer weather.
As a result, systems can be prone to breakdowns. This is a particular risk for sites with older equipment and where servicing and maintenance is not as robust as it should be. System failures can lead to a closure of buildings, unhappy clients and employees and consequential fi nancial losses.
Keep up service and maintenance regimes If you fail to keep on top of service and maintenance regimes there could be problems ahead.
Maintenance should include thorough cleaning and regular upkeep of your complete plant, including chillers, cooling towers, heat exchangers and air handlers. When servicing your chillers make sure adequate focus is given to the condensers to ensure that they continue to operate effi ciently. Higher ambient temperatures will put a strain on condensers as they work harder to reject excess heat. They will also need special attention if, over the year,
42 August 2016
attempts have been made to increase cooling by spraying them with water. Over time this destroys the fi ns, resulting in major capacity loss, even during the cooler winter months. Heat exchangers are also prone to fouling or corrosion problems. These are diffi cult to spot and can develop gradually, or appear without warning.
Regular, general equipment maintenance schedules should also include preventing system leakage, such as the plant refrigerants, control calibration, electrical checks and water treatment.
If a plant isn’t maintained to work to its full capacity, it can mean shutting down a site if it fails, resulting in capital expenditure running into the tens of thousands. Complete replacement of a chiller system or heat exchanger can take months.
Rental equipment can support your site’s existing systems or temporarily replace them during maintenance and servicing periods, thereby ensuring you can remain fully operational.
It’s important to learn lessons from previous summers by refl ecting on past experience. If there were any minor issues last summer, chances are that these will reappear as major issues this year. Examine historical system effi ciency data and trends to check how your systems coped with higher ambient temperatures. If you saw dips in performance then
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