HomeRetro-Commissioning

Dalkia U.S. Chiller Services’ core belief is that if a chiller is operating efficiently, it is operating reliably. We have found that retro-commissioning delivers the largest energy savings available to chilled water plants. Dalkia U.S. Chiller Services has performed retro-commissioning services throughout the world and have found efficiency improvements from 15% to 60%. We have never performed retro-commissioning services on a centrifugal chiller where we did not save energy and increase reliability!

Chillers in the field rarely, if ever, operate according to Factory Energy Design.

From 2003 to 2012, Dalkia U.S. Chiller Services gathered and analyzed data from operating chillers and plants in the region; from the newly constructed and commissioned plants to 5 year old plants, as well as chillers up to 5 years old, all were electric driven Centrifugal Plants. What we determined was the operating range of these chillers before chiller retro-commissioning and corrective service procedures were performed was between 0.98 to 1.8 Kw per ton. After we performed retro-commissioning services, the Kw per ton performance ranges were between 0.513 to 0.759 Kw per ton.

We’re not alone in our findings.

A survey report by the Dalkia U.S. Department of Energy found more than 120,000 chillers in the Dalkia U.S. are expending more than 30% in additional energy through operational inefficiencies.

A survey report by San Diego State University Energy Engineering Institute results on 31 chiller plant sites across the Dalkia U.S. found:

Chillers that should be operating in a range from 0.65 to 1.00 kW/ton according to the OEM specifications were often actually operating at 1.5 to 3.0 kW/ton and most chiller plant operators had no idea how well their chiller plants were performing.

Report on 14 chiller plants by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance found a substantial variation in plant energy efficiency ranging from 0.55 to 1.80 Kw per/ton.

Report by the California Energy Commission addresses the problem that buildings and Chilled Water central plants do not perform as well in practice as is anticipated during design.

Reasons:

Improper equipment selection and installation

Lack of rigorous commissioning and proper maintenance

Poor feedback on operational performance and energy performance

Give us a call for a Free Plant Assessment and Evaluation of the Energy Savings that we can provide.