Climate Technologies Corp

Advanced Climate & Environmental Solutions for Commerce and Industry

Case Studies

Lower Energy and Maintenance Costs with ARP Humidification Systems

By

Case Study: ARP Humidification System

Grand Valley State University, Cook-DeVos Center for Health Sciences
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Located in the heart of Grand Rapids, the Pew campus of Grand Valley State University provides students with access to resources such as businesses, hospitals, and government agencies for internships and research, serving as a powerful resource for students to compete in today’s knowledge-based economy.

Installation

ARP High-Pressure Humidification System For Five Air Handlers

Benefits

  • Energy Savings
  • Lower Maintenance Costs
  • Improved IAQ
  • Tighter Control
  • $87K savings/year

The Challenge

The engineering firm contracted as the design manager for the new Health Sciences building on campus knew that operating costs and maintenance requirements were key issues with the university’s engineering staff. Right away, they started looking for ways to design an energy efficient facility that could serve the university’s needs for years to come.

The building houses research laboratories and classrooms. This makes controlling the indoor environment in an energy efficient way important. The research labs require large amounts of make-up air to offset the lab exhaust hoods. High air quality is also desired for the classrooms. To maintain the proper environment, good temperature and humidity control was critical. Doing so in a budget-friendly way was even more important.

The Solution

ARP Humidification Systems

The engineering firm called upon American Research Products to help them in designing an energy-efficient humidity control system. The Health Sciences building has four custom air handlers with a total of 170,000 cfm operating on VAV economizer cycles, and one 100% OA make-up unit rated at 26,000 cfm. The units are served by a single high-pressure ARP HP pump that provides 1,000 psi water to the nozzle headers via staging solenoids. The system is controlled by the building control system and system status is available campus-wide.

The humidity is introduced into each air handler in a special section between the pre-heat coil and the cooling coil. Any moisture that is not absorbed in this section is collected on a droplet filter and drained.

The installed capacity in all five air handlers is 2,116 lbs/hr with an electrical load of 3.75 kW. Compared to gas-fired steam humidifiers, the energy savings are more than $87,000 per year while annual maintenance costs are reduced by $5,000.

According to the engineering firm, “The system works as designed and controls the building humidity levels perfectly.”

Epsilon Packaged Mechanical Plant for Holy Cross Hospital

By

The Challenge

Hospitals are heavily regulated in terms of their size, total number of beds, the services they can provide, and fees they can charge. Given these regulations, it is a challenge to maximize the value of the facility.

Hospital facilities are built to last a long time and are among the most energy intensive buildings. Consequently, the mechanical systems must have a long service life, be of the highest quality, and be as efficient as practical.

Holy Cross Germantown Hospital in Germantown, Maryland, needed a solution that maximized the allowable area of the building, provided very high-quality mechanical components and offered maximum efficiency

The Solution

Epsilon Packaged Mechanical Plant

The solution involved the incorporation of an Epsilon Industries packaged mechanical plant. This is a free‐standing, completely factory designed, engineered, and fabricated mechanical plant. It consists of boilers, chillers, pumps, cooling towers, and electrical system.

Case Study: Epsilon Packaged Mechanical Plant for Holy Cross Hospital

This 2,000+ ton plant is enormous at over 5,000 ft2, yet it would have been twice that size had it been field built.

Working closely with the engineering firm, Epsilon used advanced 3D CAD to optimally arrange the system’s components. This, plus their closely controlled factory fabrication processes, resulted in minimum space required while ensuring adequate access.

The entire plant is classified as a piece of mechanical equipment (even though it shipped in 17 sections) because it is factory fabricated and bears the ETL label.

Case Study: Epsilon Packaged Mechanical Plant for Holy Cross Hospital

As a result of the optimal system design, Holy Cross was able to devote what would have been 5,000 ft2 or even 10,000 ft2 of mechanical room space inside the building to health services related space.

In addition to the system design, Epsilon provided job site labor and expertise during plant assembly and start‐up.

Refrigeration consists of three‐550-ton Daikin model WME magnetic bearing centrifugal chillers and two 190-ton Daikin TGZ Templifier water‐to‐water heat pumps.

Depending on fuel costs, the plant can produce hot water via gas, oil, or electric heat pump. The Templifier heat pumps “amplify” 44° CHW to 140° HW. The boilers are of the dual‐fuel 97% efficient condensing type. Sufficient structural integrity is provided to allow mounting of the heavy cooling towers on the plant’s roof.

The electrical distribution system consists of high voltage input switchgear and transformer inside a 1-hour fire‐rated enclosure. It serves chillers, towers, boilers, Templifier heat pumps, pumps, domestic hot water equipment, and fire pump.

An Allen‐Bradley PLC controls the entire facility through a local touch-screen interface. In addition, the PLC is connected to the main building BMS.

A packaged plant has many benefits. Not only is it a higher quality installation than a field‐built system, it is also less expensive, reduces engineering time, requires far less construction time, and allows the owner and engineer to get exactly the equipment and level of quality they want.

On this project, Epsilon worked closely with Holy Cross, the engineering firm, and the general and mechanical contractor on costs, design alternatives, equipment selection, and system layout. As a result, Holy Cross Germantown Hospital got exactly what they needed, at the right cost.

The plant qualified for a significant rebate from Pepco under the Empower Maryland Act.

View as PDF

GM M5 Project – Chilled Water Plants

By

When General Motors and their contractor Barton Malow needed three 7,500 Ton Chilled Water Plants for expansions at the GM plants in Fort Wayne, IN, Arlington, TX, and Flint, MI, they turned to Climate Technologies and Epsilon to design and fabricate modular central utility chilled water plants.

The chilled water plant shown (GM Fort Wayne) was installed in only two and one-half weeks.

Epsilon’s factory-built concept allowed General Motors and Barton Malow to save millions of dollars through the parallel path manufacturing process.

Using this manufacturing concept, these three plants were designed and delivered in significantly less time and expense as compared to stick building the same facilities on-site.

As a result of the factory-built concept, these projects did not encounter any weather delays, material handling problems, or other slowdowns that typically hamper on-site builds.

Each Epsilon chilled water plant delivered to GM is designed to accommodate future on-site expansion.

AVL America, GM Powertrain Prove Out Center

By

Climate Technologies has delivered a 650 horsepower -40F M&M Refrigeration chiller and low temperature secondary fluid pumping package to AVL America.

The chiller will provide the low temperature fluid for prove out testing of the components for General Motors new state of the art powertrain testing facility to be built in Pontiac, MI.