This month’s B2B will focus on an 80,000-sq-ft existing commercial office building in need of replacing its two air-cooled chillers. The antiquated chilled water system has two reciprocation units, each rated for 1.45 kW per ton when originally installed 18 years ago. The existing building central chilled water system is adequate to accommodate the existing building peak air conditioning loads, but the reliability and energy consumption is in question.
To select the optimum air-cooled chiller (ACC) unit replacements, much of the selection criteria has already been determined when the building owner approved the building program and basis of design: 1. Match the existing ACCU units. 2. Match the existing design parameters (e.g., chilled water supply and return temperatures). 3. Match the existing 2-pipe, reverse return piping configuration and 3-way automatic temperature control (ATC) valves at the four existing central AHU (not part of this B2B test).