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TekWorx Optimization Control Makes the Most of Condensing Boiler Plant Design of NYC High-Rise
School District Boiler Retrofit
Boiler Plant Efficiency Improvement for Housing Complex
Award-Winning New Laboratory Project
Electric to Hydronic Boiler Conversion for Landmark Times Square Building
Simple Boiler Operation for Apartment Building
Unique “Immersion Burner” Boiler Design for Federal Agency
High-Efficiency Central Chiller Plant for Medical Center
HVAC High Efficiency Plate Frame Heat Exchangers
Progressive Thinking Leads to Dramatic Energy Efficiency for Suffolk County
A TekWorx Control & Energy Optimization (CEO) System does the thinking for the unique heating and domestic hot water system designed for a building completed in 2005.
Click here to read more.
For this performance contract retrofit project, GA Fleet helped a Long Island, NY school district update 11 schools with 41 AERCO boilers.
AERCO boilers provide heat during 95% of the heating season. Peak load is augmented with cast-iron dual-fuel boilers. An energy management system controls boiler firing rate for maximum system efficiency. Hot water temperatures are reset from 180 to 100 degrees for maximum efficiency; hot water pumps operate on VFDs to vary flow in response to changes in building load. AERCO boilers operate properly without primary pumps, isolation valves, or other flow.
Project Update: 2006
Since the original contract work was completed in 1997, the school district has built a 200,000 sq ft middle school and a 350,000 sq ft high school. In both of these schools the newer, larger AERCO BMK-2.0 boilers were specified by the school district, and are used year round for both heat and domestic hot water.
Beyond the high efficiency provided by the AERCO boilers, the school district takes advantage of an Interruptible Gas rate, further reducing their fuel costs. In this case the alternate fuel is Propane-Air, an all-gas alternate fuel solution that allows the use of high efficiency gas-fired equipment, rather than lower efficiency oil-fired equipment. The propane air system consists of a buried propane tank, with a vaporizer mixer (shown) and fully automatic controls and safety features.
The propane air system was supplied by GA Fleet and is fully integrated into the district's EMS system.
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Boiler room shown before and after. |
This 50-acre Queens, NY housing complex called for the retrofit of 11 circa 1950 #6 oil-fired firetube boiler rooms with 60 high-efficiency gas fired boilers. Each boiler plant provides heat and domestic hot water to several garden apartment buildings. An energy cost study completed by the consulting engineer indicated a 250% improvement in overall boiler plant efficiency.
This project in a newly constructed laboratory building uses a 2,000,000 BTUH boiler plant to provide low temperature heating water. Boiler controls communicate with Johnson Controls BMS to vary HW reset temperatures from 130 to 80 degrees for maximum efficiency. This project won the Governors Award for design.
This retrofit project was for a landmark building in the Times Square area. The 6,000,000 BTUH boiler plant provides heat for this electric to hydronic system conversion. Sidewall venting required due to lack of chimney in building. Boiler controls communicate with Johnson Controls BMS to vary HWS reset temperatures from 180 to 100 degrees to provide optimum heating system control and maximum efficiency.
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A 10,000,000 BTUH boiler plant provides heat and domestic hot water to this apartment building in the Financial District. The boiler room master control panel includes all boiler controls, pump starters and controls for simple operation by building personnel. Industrial grade components and design provide simplified operation, superior dependability, and easy maintenance of the complete boiler room mechanical system. This includes sequencing, power, and alarms for boilers, pumps, fans, motorized valves etc., all provided with easy to use H-O-A switches for positive control and simple operation.
G.A. Fleet designed a heating plant for a federal agency regional headquarters. Low NOx emissions (under 50 PPM, standard), minimum footprint, high thermal efficiency (85%), simplicity of operation (no modulation or linkages) and virtually no maintenance (no refractory) are notable features of this design.
This project called for a new central chiller plant for a major NYC medical center. Large horizontal split case pumps, a pre-fabricated secondary chilled water VFD package, and the plate and frame heat exchanger (for free-cooling) were specified and provided by G.A. Fleet. SCHW VFD controls include advanced logic for sequencing 300 HP pumps with the highest wire-to-water efficiency.
High efficiency plate frame heat exchangers are frequently utilized to isolate open from closed piping systems, and to provide pressure breaks in high-rise applications. Working pressures up to 400 PSIG are frequently required.
These three identical units are installed at 5 TIMES SQUARE in New York City. Provided with 10" reversing valves to insure high operating efficiency and reduce maintenance, the units have been in continuous operation since the building was put into service.
If a government can be both progressive and conservative, the leaders of Suffolk County, New York certainly qualify. It's progressive in that it passed Resolution #126-2006 requiring any county building project exceeding $1 million to incorporate green design principles. When that progressive thinking was put in practice during a renovation of the county's marine police bureau, the end result of significantly improved energy efficiency can't be considered anything but conservative. In fact, the energy savings have been so great since the installation of an AERCO Benchmark 2.0 (BMK2.0) boiler that the local utility called the county Department of Public Works (DPW), which supervises all of Suffolk County's engineering, to see if the facility's meter had been turned off.
Located on the south shore of Long Island where winters can be bitter, the Marine Police Bureau is a 15,000 square foot facility that houses the equipment and law enforcement professionals who keep the 1,000 miles of coastline safe for 1.4 million county residents. In order for vehicles to enter the facility for maintenance, a large bay door must be opened, thus allowing outside air to sweep through the main part of the bureau's first floor. Since most of the maintenance work is done during the winter, heating the facility was a challenge the existing system could no longer meet.
The 30-year old, oil-fired, hydronic modular boilers that fed unit heaters throughout the bureau were at the end of their useful lives. The six oil-fired units, which had a combined capacity of 1.2 million Btus/hr, now required frequent maintenance and repairs, further increasing operating costs and significantly impeding their ability to support the building's heating needs. For the County's Facility Engineering Division staff at the DPW, modest renovations to the Great River facility presented an opportunity to improve working conditions, as well as spend taxpayers' dollars more wisely.
Chief Engineer, Thomas LaGuardia, P.E., said, "This was the first major heating plant renovation to the facility in 30 years. I wanted to take the opportunity to upgrade the bureau with technology that would have long-term benefits, both environmentally and financially."
The County's other successful high-efficiency projects at other facilities served as a good reference, according to Principal Mechanical Engineer, Michael Monaghan, P.E. "We asked our Energy Engineer, Javed Ashraf, P.E., C.E.M., to consider a number of alternatives that might help to reduce operating costs significantly by just upgrading one component of the existing hydronic system - the boilers."
Ashraf contacted David Shepard, P.E., President of G.A. Fleet Associates, an AERCO manufacturer's rep, to learn more about the operating advantages of condensing boilers with very high turndown. At Ashraf's request, Shepard provided a list of local facilities designed with AERCO units. Among them was the Sachem School District, one of the largest school systems in New York State. Sachem had purchased 12 AERCO units from G.A. Fleet to accommodate several diverse load requirements, including space heating, domestic hot water and pool water heating, at its new high school.
"I conferred with Mike after a site visit to the school and several conversations with the school district's engineers and maintenance people. We knew that the AERCO technology was best for our needs, and Tom agreed," said Ashraf. "Then, it became a matter of which unit to select."
LaGuardia notes, "We chose the AERCO Benchmark because we felt the two-million Btu/hr heating capacity, coupled with its wide range in operating capability, would best fit the special needs of the Marine Bureau staff and building. The design challenges posed by the garage doors, the building's immediate proximity to the Great South Bay, and the operating profile of the Marine Unit's maintenance staff were all considered."
The BMK2.0 is designed to be operated in condensing mode for increased efficiency and delivers 20:1 turndown for a wide range of non-cycling operations. The unit matches any load between 100,000 BTU/hr. and its full two million BTU/hr. capacity without shutting down, minimizing cycling losses. Another benefit is that the boiler's efficiency -- up to 99% -- increases as the firing rate drops to meet the part load conditions which characterize the spring and autumn temperatures that greatly extend the heating season.
Suffolk County's additional challenge was to install the system in time to benefit from a utility incentive. Monaghan recalled the AERCO installation required a switch from fuel oil to natural gas and KeySpan Energy had offered the County an incentive if the conversion was completed by December 31, 2005. Here is where Ashraf's previous experience working for a utility helped, as did the hard work of Thermo Tech Combustion, Inc., the contractor hired for the project. Even though the project didn't begin until late November, it was completed before the deadline.
More than a year after installation, LaGuardia has proof that his decision to choose AERCO was a smart one. As shown in Figure 1, the county saved $11,780 in fuel costs in just the first year. Imagine his surprise when he received a phone call from the local utility. "Our savings were so great that KeySpan actually called to ask if we turned off the meter," he recalled.
For the Facilities Engineering Division staff at the Suffolk County Department of Public Works, the call affirmed their efforts and diligence - and was proof that government can be both progressive and conservative.
