eQube

REPORT ON ENERGY CONSERVATION DRIVE AT A LARGE IT PARK

International Tech Park located at Whitefield; Bangalore has six buildings, namely Innovator,
Discover, Creator, Inventor, Explorer and Navigator.
eQube had conducted an energy audit and recommended to upgrade the chiller plant to benefit
from the more efficient chillers as well as replace the old R-22 refrigerant based system to Ozone
friendly refrigerant.
The audit report on Innovator and Discover specifies that the chillers are over 15 years old and
drawing over 0.9kw per TR of operating refrigeration and including the pumps and cooling towers
exceed 1.09 kW/TR. So, for energy conversion, for the two buildings, 9 chillers and their
corresponding pumps and cooling towers (Discover 430TR -4nos and Innovator475TR 5nos) to
attain 0.65kw per TR for the entire plant was to be replaced.
Description of Work:
This retrofit job has site space constraints and shut down time constraints, it will be difficult to
remove and change any of the existing pipes and headers. Due to that,

Whole project was restricted to having same capacity plants and planned to be done in three stages.

1. The plant has 4/5 chiller sets of chillers, pumps, cooling towers. The first stage works
should provide for isolating one set to be run independently, enabling other circuits
modifications without further shutdowns. This isolation works was to be managed in 2
days shutdowns for each building. Post work included dismantling; remove replacement
and repositioning of chiller, pump, cooling tower, pipe, valves and the same related
electrical works.

2. Dismantling, shifting of old and installation of 2 new chillers with their corresponding
pumps and cooling tower with VFDs and starter panels when One Set of isolated chiller is
operational, without any shutdown. Entire process is phase I.

3. Dismantling, shifting of old and installation of other new chillers with their corresponding
pumps and cooling tower with VFDs and starter panels, when One Set of isolated chiller
is operational, without any shutdown. Entire process is phase II.

Detail systematic steps required for retrofit job is provided in Annexure enclosed elsewhere
in this tender document for both the buildings.

DESIGN & SPECIFICATION APPROACH -

In absence of chiller loading patter of existing plants, Bangalore ambient temperatures were
tabulated and correlated with the hours of operations of the chiller plant in those ambient
temperatures.
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Heat load was done to prepare the loading pattern of the chillers with these ambient conditions and
time of the day. This resulted in a simple matrix of time vrs loading and wet bulb vrs loading.
Using wet bulb the water entry temperature to condensers were tabulated. Thus operating hours
were chosen.

Ambient Dry Bulb F % of Operating Time

Peak and 96oF 0.01
96oF and 90oF 3
90oF and 86oF 5.4
86oF and 75.2oF 34.4
75.2oF and 68oF 40.3
68oF and 64oF 10.8
less than 64oF 6.09

The above threw a very interesting fact that over 74% of the time, the chillers were operating for
ambient temperatures between 20oC and 30oC, where in the wet bulb temperatures were matched
and the water inlet temperatures to the condenser was estimated to be at 70.5 oF. Chillers were
selected and compared for this cooling water inlet temperatures.

PEAK HEAT LOAD -3% LOAD AT 30oC 34% LOAD AT 20oC 40%

One change from the trend was that our specifications did not specify for any technology of chiller,
but asked for most efficient operating efficiency for these loads and inlet water temperatures from
shortlisted OEMs and their best shot of whichever model/ technology that they had.

The short period of shut down, necessitated that main headers, pipe tappings could not be changed,
resulting in like to like replacement in terms of capacity i.e. 430TR for Discoverer and 475TR for
Innovator building.

Chiller model and performance selection and recommendation was done with the life cycle
analysis costing considering the plant to operate for next 15 Years. Life Cycle cost components
were Capital cost, Energy cost, Oil replacement costs and AMC charges.

Each chiller and condenser had its own pressure drop too, hence the operating cost of the chiller
plant included the pressure drop and hence the pump power too was computed to get the total
actual plant power for comparison.
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Chiller, condenser, and cooling tower pipe connections and routing was optimized to minimize the
operating pressure drops of pumps.

PROJECT CHALLENGE:

The client was expecting the designers scope and responsibility to be - selecting the chiller,
preparation of layouts and preparing BOQ and guiding the clients to make the most efficient
choice and negotiated for only this scope. However, we felt that is wrong, specially, in a retrofit
project.

Project Description

The Project was two buildings with chiller plant room at the terrace level. For Innovator building
the plant room level was on G+11floors over 2 basements. For Discoverer building the plant room
level was on G+13 Floors over 2 basements.

DESCRIPTION OF EXISTING OPERATIONS

The buildings were originally commissioned and occupied in 1996-97. Like any design of those
days, the main focus was on safe margins and reliability and cost effectiveness. Space constraints
in plant room is not a news to be over emphasized upon. None of the isolating valves were holding
(after 15 years no one even expects them to hold).

Discoverer- Occupied Area 287,532Sq Ft, Occupancy 2500 employees

Innovator - Occupied Area 443,672Sq Ft, Occupancy 4000 employees

Installed 4 x 430TR chiller sets in Discoverer and 5 x 475TR chiller sets in Innovator building.

Overall 2 buildings totaling 20-25 clients were occupying over 7.2Lakh sqft of office space. Some
of the clients have even night time operations, while almost all of them have servers and UPS
rooms operating 24/7. Very few of them had back up DX systems due to the property owners
stringent regulations and policies.

Hence after lot of planning and supporting documentation 2 days shut down i.e. a Saturday and a
Sunday was accepted by tenants with some smaller tenants even asking for temporary back up AC
support also.

The contractor was expected to deliver with this as a non-negotiable baseline.

- Re-emphasizing -

Two days shut down for replacement of 4 sets of chillers, pumps, cooling towers, adding
VFDs pipe modifications to suit new chillers, pumps, cooling towers etc. in Discoverer
building.
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& 2 days shut down for replacement of 5 sets of chillers, pumps, cooling towers, adding VFDs
pipe modifications to suit new chillers, pumps, cooling towers etc. in Innovator building.

IDENTIFYING THE SCOPE OF WORKS

Considering the buildings are standing over 2 levels of basement, there was no possibility of
placing a 250 Ton crane with over 75m boom to be placed within the podium zone. Hence the only
possible locations were identified for locating the crane. (see pic. below).

Site image showing the adjacent roads, podium, and terrace plant, large building signage in the most vantage points

Civil scope of works was identified as preparatory works and budgets were allocated for this
works as under:

Plant room wall/ Ascendas hoarding etc. were required to be dismantled and removed to create the
hole in the wall for chillers to be removed and taken in with temporary rain protection and re-
built to architects (in-house) requirements too.

HVAC scope included electrical for HVAC as well as temporary mechanical works i.e. preparatory
works, dismantling, shifting, in every stage of contract till commissioning and handing over.
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On the whole the project was broken in 3 stages

1. Shut down activity including preparation, activity during shut down and commissioning.
2. Works to be done post shut down and pre-commissioning activity.
3. Commissioning and testing. (very important as consultants were responsible for the
IKW/TR delivery of the total plant, as per appointment criteria).

Scope was broken into as small and activity as possible (details in the sample below) e.g.

Each and every valve (existing), pipe tapping was numbered in drawing. Scope mentioned as
prior to shut down prepare elbow piece with shoe joints, connection piece, flanges with valve
assembly, and distance pieces for a numbered point.

Raising of valve heights to enable movement of equipment within plant room during operating
hours was also listed valve number wise.

Temporary and permanent structural works matching to new equipment sizes were to be prepared
etc.

No. of working gangs were listed down and each gangs assigned specific tasks and man hours
estimated and mentioned in scope of works in tender document itself.

reproducing below a small sample part of tender docs

DISCOVER ANNEXTURE FOR DIFFERENT STAGES OF WORK:

PHASE 1(BEFORE AND AT TIME OF SHUTDOWN)

CODE FOR
S.NO AREA OF WORK DESCRIPTION SEQUENTIAL WORK ORDER
OPERATION
INST ALAT ION OF 500 BFV
BUT T ERFLY 1. ONE SIDE OF FLANGE HAS T O CUT , WHICH
1 A AT T HE COND.HEADER
VALVE-1 ALREADY EXIST S IN SIT E.
T OWARDS PUMP SUCT ION
2. DEPEND ON WIDT H OF BFV, SMALL
PORT ION OF PIPE T O CUT AND WELDED WIT H
FLANGE.
3. FLANGED BFV T O BE COUPLED WIT H
GASKET AND BOLT S
INST ALAT ION OF 500 BFV
BUT T ERFLY 1. CUT PORT ION OF PIPE (DEPEND ON
2 B AT T HE COND.HEADER
VALVE-2 WIDT H OF 500 BFV)
FROM PUMP DISCHARGE
2. WELD ONE SIDE OF PIPE WIT H 500
FLANGE.
3. IN T HE SAME ON OT HER SIDE OF FLANGE.
4. INST ALL BFV B/W PROVIDED SPACE OF
FLANGES WIT H GASKET AND BOLT S
INST ALAT ION OF 500 BFV
BUT T ERFLY
3 C IN COND.HEADER 1. Same as above scope
VALVE-3
T OWARDS CHILLER INLET
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Some more below

OPREATION AREA O F
S.NO DESCRIPTIO N SEQ UENTIAL WO RK O RDER
CODE WO RK

SHIFT NG OF EXIST 250

CHILLED AND CONDENSOR
BUT T ERFLY 1. CUT T HE FLANGES PIPES OF 250 CHILLED
7 G BFV T O A HEIGHT OF
VALVE-11,12 AND CONDENSOR BFV .
1.5MT S T O 3.3MT S OF
CHILLER 1
2. SHIFT /RELOCAT E IT T O HEIGHT OF 1.7MT S
T O 3.3MT S.
3. DO T HE WELDING FOR CUT PIPES ON
BOT H T HE ENDS
SHIFT ING OF EXIST 250
CHILLED AND CONDENSOR
M.BUT T ERFLY
8 H MBFV T O A HEIGHT OF 1. All 3 steps as above
VALVE-13,14
1.5MT S T O 3.3MT S OF
CHILLER 1
SHIFT ING OF EXIST 250
CHILLED AND CONDENSOR
BUT T ERFLY
9 I BFV T O A HEIGHT OF 1. All 3 steps as above
VALVE-15,16
1.5MT S T O 3.3MT S OF
CHILLER 2
SHIFT ING OF EXIST 250
CHILLED AND CONDENSOR
M.BUT T ERFLY
10 J MBFV T O A HEIGHT OF 2. All 3 steps as above
VALVE-17,18
1.5MT S T O 3.3MT S OF
CHILLER 2

This activity chart in this tabular format was of 27 pages in the tender document. The scope
included flushing in parts and then joining into the main systems.

The whole scheme of project execution was tendered with the following intention:

1. Do a months preparation for the shut-down works. During the shut-down activity only
open, drain, disconnect, and install new valves with flanges for isolation.
2. Isolation was planned in such a way, that at least one chiller and its circuit is available to
operate independently through-out the night and holidays and other parts can be drained
and worked on, and reconnected for day time operations.
3. Hence the site team would continuously have work and tempo will be maintained for the
entire period of 4-5 months of work, despite shut down only for 2 days each.

POST RETROFIT PERFORMANCE

The retrofitted chilling plant was envisaged to reduce the specific power from 1.0 & 1.08IKW/TR
to 0.65IKW/TR in Discoverer and Innovator buildings respectively, thereby saving 9.65 Lakh
KWhrs for Discoverer and 12.18 Lakh KWHrs for Innovator building per annum.
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The project in totality was completed by August 2013. Energy data downloaded from the clients
HT feeder for HVAC before and after the completion and fine tuning of the plants are tabulated
below.

NOTE: The energy data is including the AHU and ventilation fan energy, however, since there
was no change in the earlier and new energy (no retrofit is done till now in the low side as yet), it
is confirmed by client to be actual energy difference due to plant retrofitting only.

BEFORE:
Innovator Building Discoverer Building
Month
LT AC consumption LT AC consumption
12-Sep 541234 329125
12-Oct 551755 322910
12-Nov 432385 299390
12-Dec 355386 267390
13-Jan 396763 275615
13-Feb 296158 254870
13-Mar 355237 283155
13-Apr 402297 338250
13-May 596650 352055
13-Jun 493678 298425
13-Jul 512943 289065
13-Aug 355525 285915
Total 12-13 52,90,011KWhrs 35,96,165KWhrs

AFTER:

Innovator Building Discoverer Building

Month
LT AC consumption LT AC consumption
13-Sep 341119 267070
13-Oct 357443 188485
13-Nov 306828 200480
13-Dec 268059 126175
14-Jan 268891 142860
14-Feb 258880 144335
14-Mar 307349 168750
14-Apr 345569 193405
14-May 398005 210785
14-Jun 396061 196493
14-Jul 376426 184611
14-Aug 350689 195196
Total 13-14 39,75,319KWhrs 22,18,645KWhrs
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SAVINGS RECORDED 13,14,692kWHrs + 13,77,520kWHrs = 26,92,212kWHrs, as
against targeted savings of 21.84 Lakh KWHRs.

Predicted EPI for HVAC 98.56 KWhrs/ m2/ Annum.

Achieved EPI for HVAC 91.09 KWHrs/m2/ Annum.

The project since operating in captive power plant with FO was estimated to operate at Rs.
12 per kWHr, resulting in a net saving of Rs. 3.23 Crores in first year itself, thereby reducing
the ROI period by 1 year on the project.