Services / Specialist Controls Optimisation
Flagship service
Specialist Controls Optimisation is where the energy savings come from. A calibrated digital twin finds the setpoints that run your plant at its best, forecasts the saving, and hands the strategy to your BMS contractor in a format they already use.
Chillers, pumps and cooling towers typically take 25–50% of a commercial building’s electricity. Every machine has its own efficiency profile, and each depends on what the others are doing. That is hard for people to optimise by hand.
From the millions of possible setpoint combinations, the optimisation engine finds the one that maximises efficiency and mechanical performance for every load, weather and stage. Once calibration is complete, a multi-stage optimisation loop solves the plant as one system: the load balancer sets the split between machines, the staging optimiser sets when they come on and off, and the condenser water loop is solved for lowest total power rather than lowest chiller power.
Every strategy is a setpoint calculation the BMS can run and your team can read. Most engagements implement three or four of the six. Which ones, and in what order, follows the plant’s own data.
Setpoint calculated from chiller status, field demand and wet-bulb temperature, as an approach above wet bulb that changes with the stage and the load. Reset minutely (adjustable) between the minimum and maximum constraints set by the client or the incumbent, rate-limited to 0.2 °C per minute. Chiller power rises with condenser water temperature while tower fan and pump power fall; the setpoint sits at the bottom of that total.
Setpoint calculated as a function of chiller load, modulating between the minimum and maximum flow constraints, rate-limited to 1 L/s per minute. Targets the condenser water pump share of plant energy, typically 10–15%.
Order of operation of available chillers and groups of identical chillers. Where machines differ in design, fixed speed against VSD for example, the sequence falls out of their two performance surfaces rather than a rotation rule. Improves runtime per cycle, short cycling, starts and stops, and runtime balance between low-load and high-load chillers.
Staging on field demand (kWr), not chiller loading percentage. Stage-up and stage-down bands overlap: that overlap is the hysteresis that stops hunting, with a stabilisation delay of 15 minutes to stage up and 20 minutes to stage down (adjustable). Runtime delay timers, minimum decoupler flow, lead/lag rotation and every other chiller safety and reliability measure stay where they are.
Where chillers on a common header have different efficiency curves, no fixed split is right across the year. The load balancer publishes the split as a lookup table against field demand and wet bulb, so the BMS reads it rather than calculates it.
Supply temperature reset against field demand and ambient conditions, within limits that hold comfort and dehumidification. Where the M&V boundary requires chilled water temperature to the field to be held, this strategy is simulated for its energy saving and reported rather than implemented.
Setpoints are calculated from variables already measured or calculated in the BMS. No new instrumentation is assumed.
Field demand from common supply and return temperature and flow, the most reliable of the three available methods.
All existing hardware and software is retained: servers, controllers, network, panels, valves, actuators, sensors and the BMS application itself. Nothing is installed.
All existing safety mechanisms, interlocks and control strategies outside the chilled water plant stay in place unless the functional description states otherwise.
Implementation is by the incumbent controls technician or an approved agent, tested offsite and commissioned outside normal hours. Exergenics does not write to the BMS.
The strategy is published as a site-specific functional description in industry-standard format. It is yours to keep.
5–35% of chilled water plant energy, with published sites between 6.8% and 33.4%. Verified against a calibrated baseline, not estimated from a benchmark.
10–15% lower peak, from staging on field demand and holding the condenser water loop at its lowest total power rather than its lowest chiller power.
Annual tCO₂e avoided, measured to IPMVP Option B and suitable for sustainability reporting and utility submission.
Fewer starts and stops, fewer short cycles, longer runtime per cycle, and runtime balanced across machines. Mechanical performance is baselined and reported alongside energy.
Each option includes the one before it, and every one includes a functional description for your BMS contractor.
Priced per kilowatt of refrigeration (kWr) of installed plant capacity. Request a price list
The strategies, the plant variables they are calculated from, and the constraints that stay in place. Written for the BMS technician and the consulting engineer.
All figures measured to IPMVP Option B against a weather and load adjusted baseline, with no new hardware. Read the case studies
5–35% of chilled water plant energy. Published sites range from 6.8% to 33.4%, each verified to IPMVP Option B.
No. The work is software only and air-gapped from plant control. Nothing is installed.
Your incumbent BMS contractor, in the existing BMS, outside normal hours, with every safety and interlock retained. Exergenics witnesses remotely.
No. Setpoints are published as readable logic your team can interrogate, not a controller in a cabinet.
A desktop forecast from your plant’s own BMS data: data gap analysis, a plant health check and a Plant Potential business case. Credited in full against any option purchased within 90 days.
Priced per kilowatt of refrigeration (kWr) of installed plant capacity. Request a price list