Preliminary Development of Retuning Process for Energy Savings in Thailand

Abstract

The retro-commissioning process has been energy-saving, around 20% on average in the United States. However, it has not been intensively used due to the cost-prohibitive issue of improving the building's existing air conditioning system to make it more efficient, which consists of the cost of the measurement system, replacing more efficient equipment, the cost of pre-and post-improvement inspections, resulting in a payback of more than three years. To solve the above problem, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a national laboratory under the control of the United States Department of Energy, has carried out designing a new process called re-tuning process; the process emphasizes correcting the original control system of the building, efficient use of building resources while remaining only the labour cost of adjusting the correct control system resulting in savings about 5 – 30% and low investment. The process can be performed every three years when building operations have improper operations. This research analyses and develops the retuning process applied in Thailand using the BAS data framework by analysing three main constraints, which are 1) CPMS (chiller plant manager system) guide, 2) AHU (air-handing unit) guide, and 3) zone guide to finding limitations of re-tuning to Thailand. Due to data and connectivity limitations of the BAS systems, the new process includes five steps of chiller operations. This tool can modify a CPMS system and lead to energy savings when existing systems are corrected by the tool to achieve an average of 5% energy savings for the chiller power consumption.