Chilled Water Plant Scoping Exercise
Can you find the 16 existing building commissioning opportunities that exist in this virtual chilled water plant?
Setting the Scene
This exercise lets you pick up where the narrative on the The HIjend Hotel page left off, To get you started, the next section provides a few leading questions to be thinking about as you explore the plant. Some of them may even lead you to an answer; you never know. But if you want to just jump right in, click here to go to the bottom of the page where you will find the files you need to work with. This link takes you to the SketchUp Resources page if you have not already been there, which has copies of SketchUp you can download and other information about working with the models.
A Few Leading Questions
- What is the load on the plant and how did you come up with the number? There are several ways you could do this that would be grounded by some physical indicator. So please document the technique you use in your answer.
- If you are looking at a pump, without labeling on the pipe and with the pump trim and specialties insulated, how can you know for sure which way the water is flowing? (This is a technique that you can use to verify that labels on the piping are correct.)
- Is there any portion of the piping where the water could flow in either direction depending on the operating mode?
- What is the nameplate rating for the chilled water distribution pumps?
- Who sealed the mechanical drawing set for the facility?
- Who manufactured the valves on the discharge of the pumps and are their any issues associated with them that would concern you as an facilities engineer running a facility that may require 24/7 chilled water service to accomplish your mission?
- What is the purpose of the balance valve on the coupon rack and how is the setting determined?
- What is the temperature differential across the condenser water system?
- How many hours and how many starts have been accumulated by each of the chillers?
- Do the things you are observing in the central plant make you want to go look at other areas in the facility or are the issues you are discovering specific to the equipment in the chiller room?
The Exercise Materials
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To do the exercise, you will need a version of SketchUp running on your computer as discussed on the SketchUp Resources page. Once you have SketchUp installed and running, you should be able to down load the file with the model in (the first file to the right) and begin working with it. You may also want to download a copy of the scene guide (the second file to the right).
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One "heads-up" on the scene guide; it is dated and there are some things in the model that I have uploaded that do not show up in it. But it still will generally get you around and I should have the scene guide current this week (I hope).
Another minor detail is that there are scenes in the model where the valves and fittings in around the chilled water pumps do not have any insulation on them. In a real plan, missing insulation is definitely something to take note of and usually represents an energy savings opportunity, especially for hot piping. But for this particular model, the insulation is actually there in most of the scenes. I just made a scene with it turned off so you could see some of the details behind how a pump is piped into a system.
The model has been back-saved to SketchUp version 8, so as long as the version you are using is that one or newer, it should open up.
All of the opportunities you can discover in the model have what I call "obvious indicators" associated with them. My favorite example of an obvious indicator is the Gary Larson cartoon where a copilot is asking the captain Say... what's a mountain goat doing way up here in a cloud bank? You probably don't need to be a pilot to realize that if you see a mountain goat in front of you in a cloud bank, it is an obvious indicator of a mountain that you are heading towards which is in very close proximity to your airplane. This is generally something to be avoided since the FAA frowns on pilots running into mountains and may, if they do it, yank their license.
In the case of the model, some of the indicators are more obvious than others. In fact, you probably need to have some field experience behind you to recognize some of them. But field experience is how most of us learned about these things and the point of the model is to try to give you a bit of that field experience even if you can't get out into a mechanical room.
Once you have made your list, you can download my finding list (the third file called "Answers" in the group of files above) and compare it to yours. In addition to listing the findings, the answer file tells you:
Eventually, we hope to develop a track for each of the findings that will get into the details of how to assess it, how to do the math, now to implement the improvement, and how to verify that what you did is working. So check back occasionally to see how we are progressing on that lofty goal.
But meanwhile, try your hand at scoping the central plant and see what you find in terms of opportunity to save pretend energy and make pretend improvements. If you have fun doing that, then see if you can get out in the field and try to do the real thing. That is even more fun and more rewarding.
Another minor detail is that there are scenes in the model where the valves and fittings in around the chilled water pumps do not have any insulation on them. In a real plan, missing insulation is definitely something to take note of and usually represents an energy savings opportunity, especially for hot piping. But for this particular model, the insulation is actually there in most of the scenes. I just made a scene with it turned off so you could see some of the details behind how a pump is piped into a system.
The model has been back-saved to SketchUp version 8, so as long as the version you are using is that one or newer, it should open up.
All of the opportunities you can discover in the model have what I call "obvious indicators" associated with them. My favorite example of an obvious indicator is the Gary Larson cartoon where a copilot is asking the captain Say... what's a mountain goat doing way up here in a cloud bank? You probably don't need to be a pilot to realize that if you see a mountain goat in front of you in a cloud bank, it is an obvious indicator of a mountain that you are heading towards which is in very close proximity to your airplane. This is generally something to be avoided since the FAA frowns on pilots running into mountains and may, if they do it, yank their license.
In the case of the model, some of the indicators are more obvious than others. In fact, you probably need to have some field experience behind you to recognize some of them. But field experience is how most of us learned about these things and the point of the model is to try to give you a bit of that field experience even if you can't get out into a mechanical room.
Once you have made your list, you can download my finding list (the third file called "Answers" in the group of files above) and compare it to yours. In addition to listing the findings, the answer file tells you:
- What the obvious indicator is,
- What scene numbers are associated with the finding,
- What type of benefit is associated with the finding,
- What the next steps would be in terms of developing the finding, and
- What are the precautions and other considerations you should be thinking about as you move forward.
Eventually, we hope to develop a track for each of the findings that will get into the details of how to assess it, how to do the math, now to implement the improvement, and how to verify that what you did is working. So check back occasionally to see how we are progressing on that lofty goal.
But meanwhile, try your hand at scoping the central plant and see what you find in terms of opportunity to save pretend energy and make pretend improvements. If you have fun doing that, then see if you can get out in the field and try to do the real thing. That is even more fun and more rewarding.
