Chillers

An Illinois protective packaging manufacturer was able to reduce their cooling costs by over 60% while also saving around $100,000 each year on system maintenance by replacing their old system with high-efficiency equipment and a streamlined hydronic design.  Helped by ComEd efficiency incentives, the plant captured these benefits through an under 2.4 year payback system upgrade project.

Absorption chillers have been around for more than 75 years, with several thousand chillers operating successfully all over the world today. Yet myths about cost, operation and performance surround this technology, particularly in North America. Look beyond the myths and you’ll discover absorption cooling technology can be efficient, cost-effective, flexible and reliable.
Cooling large buildings typically requires the use of air- or water-cooled chillers that produce chilled water, which then cools the air. About 39% of buildings over 100,000 square feet use chilled-water systems employing various refrigeration compressor designs.
One of the biggest challenges brewers such as Coppertail face is maintaining the dedication to their brand’s mission and their loyal following, while expanding their reach and growing market share. That challenge means not compromising on ingredients and utilizing the best equipment available for the fermenting, brightening and packaging of their product. But, for any growing business, reliability, uptime and power costs must be quantified in order to maximize margins to make the business viable.
Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey Pa., is all about energy and resource efficiencies, which is why it adopted a new approach to managing its chilled water operation. The approach, which revolves around a software and analytics platform used to optimize three chiller plants in addition to various equipment upgrades, has allowed it to save 4.16 GWh/yr in electrical energy consumption – and shave $300,000 off of its annual electrical costs. With an incentive from the local utility of $415,799, the multi-phased initiative achieved a payback of 4.3 years. 
Given that HVAC systems typically account for 44% of commercial buildings’ energy consumption1, HVAC optimization should be a priority efficiency upgrade after lighting improvements and other low-hanging fruit. Full-scale HVAC optimization typically reduces energy usage and costs by 20 to 40%, improves system reliability by operating equipment more efficiently and at optimal temperatures, ensures consistently healthy air quality and building comfort, and reduces a building’s carbon footprint.
Rush University Medical Center (RUMC) is Chicago's second-largest hospital with multi-story buildings that dominate the city's medical district. But that prestigious location posed problems when RUMC's 11-story Professional Building 2 needed to replace two aging centrifugal chillers. It appeared the only alternative was to move a crane down a crowded street to lower new chillers through the roof. But some simple surgery made it possible for Smardt split-shell chillers with Danfoss Turbocor® compressors to simply take an elevator up to the penthouse mechanical room, a solution that cut installation costs while boosting energy savings.
A common misconception in plastics injection molding is that coolant temperature is the one true path to achieve productivity and profitability. The reality, however, is that turbulent flow is the primary force behind efficient cooling and a key driver in the ability to achieve operational efficiencies, increase profits and consistently produce high quality products.
The ComEd® Energy Efficiency Program offers incentives to help facilities save money by improving the efficiency of their equipment. Industries can receive standard cash incentives for common energy efficiency improvements or custom cash incentives for making improvements not included in the standard program.
Commercial buildings in the United States will be looking to replace centrifugal chillers as many are near or past their median replacement life of 25 years. This becomes apparent when you consider nearly half of all commercial buildings were constructed before 1980 according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The same can be said of buildings on American college campuses, which according to the same data, more than half of which were built before 1990. Bottom line — if you’re a commercial building owner or a facility manager/director in the United States, you may need to replace a chiller.
The Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) connects scientists from the University of Maryland, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and industry to find solutions to major scientific and medical challenges. With one of the nation’s largest collections of high-resolution instruments, they look inside cells and manipulate molecules. IBBR researchers have figured out the molecular structure of proteins, unraveled the protein interactions involved in autoimmune disorders and discovered possible countermeasures for antibiotic resistance.