Explore financial impacts that can save your budget
Commissioning cash-on-cash returns of 91% for existing buildings and 23% for new buildings
Proper commissioning and operational service of equipment has a significant impact on an owner’s operational budget. This article explores the following financial impacts on air-cooled chiller equipment:
- Energy costs ranging from $1,300 to $23,700 per year, modeled to various geographic locations and building types
- Commissioning cash-on-cash returns of 91% and 23% for existing and new buildings
- Maintenance programs to prevent up to a 36% reduction in the expected life of the chiller and a 23% reduction in energy efficiency
- Remote monitoring and virtual inspection reports that can save $1,000 to $2,000 per year through more efficient issue resolution and response efficiency
Daikin’s Intelligent Equipment platform helps a building owner and service technician achieve these operational goals and provides specific capabilities in the aforementioned operational categories.
1. Energy monitoring to increase efficiency
- Proper maintenance and monitoring of chiller equipment can prevent degradation in energy efficiency—a degradation that could exceed 20% in the absence of proper service, maintenance, and operational control.
- Intelligent Equipment directly monitors the energy consumed by equipment and then packages the energy data into easy-to-interpret graphs, dashboards, and tables.
2. Commissioning to dial in equipment for savings
- Proper maintenance and monitoring of chiller equipment can prevent degradation in energy efficiency—a degradation that could exceed 20% in the absence of proper service, maintenance, and operational control.
- With Intelligent Equipment, building owners gain access to data with a convenient user interface that creates commissioning reports, automatically logs controller set points, and builds monitor-based trending.
- Daikin service representatives use Intelligent Equipment to improve the overall commissioning and startup performance of chillers, by creating alerts for issues via email notifications, with the ability to remotely log in at any time to view chiller performance.
3. Inspection reporting and preventative maintenance
- According to a Jones-Lang LaSalle2 study of 12 million feet of property management real estate, preventative maintenance programs delivers ROI of 545% in a 25-year period. Specifically with chillers, this study concluded that proper preventative maintenance would prevent a 36% reduction in the expected life of the chiller and prevent a 23% reduction in energy efficiency. The study modeled expected PM costs at $5,500 a year for a 350-ton operational chiller, resulting in a 400% ROI for reciprocating chillers and over 1000% ROI for centrifugal chillers over their lifetimes.
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IIntelligent Equipment improves preventive maintenance programs
- Built-in inspection reporting
- Built-in factory maintenance recommendations
- Event-based maintenance
4. Performance trends and analytics
- An integrated monitoring solution, like Intelligent Equipment, allows true intelligence to be built into monitoring HVAC units in a way never before possible with a BAS. With knowledge of the engineering values and normal ranges for the chiller, Intelligent Equipment serves as a digital technician, constantly monitoring the chiller’s operation to help identify issues before they turn into more costly problems.
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Examples of these trends and analytics capabilities include the following:
- Condenser approach temperatures
- Evaporator approach temperatures
- Compressor starts and run time
- Outside air temp lockout
- Entering water temp vs. Energy consumed
- Occupied/unoccupied load analysis – coasting opportunities
5. Real-time monitoring for service and maintenance
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Even with the best preventative maintenance programs in place, there are situations requiring an emergency-based work order or triggering a tenant comfort complaint. Intelligent Equipment brings a higher level of value by providing the following opportunities to better support ongoing service and maintenance programs:Condenser approach temperatures
- Remote Monitoring
- Historical Data – Never Deleted
- Access to all Equipment Data Points
- Service Log Documentation
- Instant Notification of Equipment Alarms
In conclusion, Daikin’s IoT solution, Intelligent Equipment, is an effective technology platform for saving thousands of dollars in costs when applied to commissioning and operational equipment processes. The Chart 6.1 summarizes these costs and reveals where there is opportunity for tremendous overall savings of $4,000 to $16,500 per year:
