HVAC Talk of the Week: Optimising your Pump Control

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How do we optimise our pump control? In a previous video, we discussed how we can optimise our pump energy consumption by optimising our pump design. But once designed, our pump control strategy becomes the most important aspect in further optimising our pump energy consumption.

In the past, all pumps used to be operated at constant speed. This is suboptimal because the power of a pump is directly related tothe third power of its rotation speed. Therefore, if you want to decrease the pump energy consumption, you need to decrease the rotation speed of the motor in your pump.

In hydronic systems, the operation point of our pump is chosen based on the system peak design flow rate. However, once the system starts to operate in partial load, thus decreasing the flow rate, the actual pressure losses withing the system will decrease.

Nevertheless, the pump head of our pump will increase, as the pump curve is fixed for a pump operating at a constant rotation speed. Therefore, the actual power of our pump will be non-optimal as we provide more power than necessary within our system.

Pump energy consumption can therefore be optimised when operating a pump at variable speed by implementing a frequency converter to our pump’s motor, the power of our motor can be altered, and thus changing the pump’s rotation speed.

As a result, the pump curve is no longer fixed and decrease whenever the pump rotation speed decreases. Doing so, we can provide the system with the actual power needed, and therefore optimising our pump energy consumption.

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Tune in to watch the video now, and discover how the Hysopt software can assist you in your engineering process.

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