Controls of Multiple Chillers in Central Cooling Plants Conference Proceeding

Overview

This paper summarizes the results of an extensive parametric analysis to assess the potential of multi-chiller plants to save energy associated with electric cooling use. Specifically, the impacts on chiller performance are investigated for two office buildings geometries, three chiller types, and five geographical locations. It was determined that for most office buildings, increasing the number of chillers beyond three does not provide significant additional energy savings for all three types of chillers and for all locations. Moreover, the results of the analysis indicate that a chiller size ratio of 0.65 for the case of a two-chiller central cooling plants provides the optimal energy performance.