Chiller Plant
Controls Control
Building Automation and Chiller Plant Control
For building automation and control of chilled water plants, Trane has developed the Tracer Summit™. It can control the operation of the complete installation: chillers, pumps, cooling towers, isolating valves, air handlers and terminal units. It is a
The main functions are:
•Chiller sequencing: equalizes the number of running hours of the chillers. Different control strategies are available depending on the configuration of the installation.
•Control of the auxiliaries: includes input/output modules to control the operation of the various auxiliary equipments (water pumps, valves, cooling towers, etc.)
•Time of day scheduling: allows the end user to define the occupancy period, i.e. time of the day, holiday periods and exception schedules.
•Optimization of the start/stop time of the installation: based on the programmed schedule of occupancy and on the historical record of the behavior of the temperatures, calculates the optimal time of start and stop of the installation to get the best compromise between energy savings and comfort of the occupants.
•Soft loading: the soft loading function minimizes the number of chillers that are operated to satisfy the building
morning pull down, thus preventing an overshoot of the actual capacity required. Unnecessary starts are avoided and the peak current demand is lowered.
•Communication capabilities: several communication levels are provided:
—local, through a PC workstation keyboard. Summit can be programmed to send messages to local or remote workstations and or a pager in the following cases:
—Analog parameter exceeding a programmed value.
—Maintenance warning.
—Component failure alarm.
—Critical alarm messages. In this latter case, the message is displayed until the operator acknowledges the receipt of the information. From the remote station it is also possible to access and modify the chiller plant’s control parameters.
•Remote communication through a modem: As an option, a modem can be connected to communicate the plant operation parameters through voice grade phone lines.
The remote terminal is a PC workstation equipped with a modem and software to display the remote plant parameters.
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