ENERGY SAVING
Cracking the chilled-water code
Peter Wolff , Global Manager, Ecosystems & Performance Upgrades at Armstrong Fluid Technology, examines the four most common culprits behind under-performing chilled-water pumps. From design oversights to operational ineffi ciencies, he highlights where systems typically fall short and how targeted strategies can restore effi ciency, reliability, and long- term value.
T Peter Wolff
'Traditional pump staging strategies, for example, turn on the next pump when the existing or current pumps reach 95% of maximum speed.'
he latest generation of pump models is inherently more effi cient than its predecessors.
The latest motors don’t just meet effi ciency standards; they outpace them entirely. On top of this, advanced control methodologies, made possible by advancements in machine learning and embedded intelligence, are yielding higher and higher savings as time goes on. There are still several points within the lifecycle of a chilled-water pump, however, where mistakes can be made which lead to under-performance of the equipment. Here are some common pitfalls to avoid, and some practical solutions to make sure you get the most out of your investment.
1: Pumps oversized from the outset The traditional approach in the era of fi xed-speed pumps was to oversize ‘to be on the safe side’. This is no longer necessary, of course, in the part-load, variable-speed world we operate in today. The potential pitfall here is that, when replacing a pump that was installed some years ago, there is the risk of ‘like-for-like’ replacement, which builds ineffi ciency into the replacement system from the outset by specifying a larger pump than necessary.
Another tricky situation we encounter is where a system
has to expand incrementally. Take the example of a new or growing district energy network. For much of the time in the early phases of these projects, the pumps (designed for the peak output at some future date) are required to operate far below their ideal capacity, which means energy wastage every day until capacity is reached. On top of this, operating with oversized equipment also means a higher-than-average potential for technical issues to develop, due to the equipment operating outside the parameters within which it was
18 January 2026 •
www.acr-news.com
designed to function.
A solution to this dilemma is the eff ective use of modular design. The latest generation of packaged HVAC solutions has been designed to address projects where scaling up is a necessity, so look for solutions that are already designed with incremental expansion in mind. This can avoid costly customisation of existing systems and provide much-needed predictability and repeatability of environmental performance. The use of these scalable energy centres and/or temporary energy centres provides much-needed fl exibility, facilitating future growth without losing savings in those all-important early phases of a project. Of course, pumps designed with a wider operational range, such as the Armstrong Design Envelope range, also enhance fl exibility.
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