Commercial Office Building

Client Situation

A 1,409,463 sq. ft. state-of-the-art commercial office building in the Midwest asked Earthwise Environmental to assess potential efficiencies gained by changing from the Ethylene Glycol-based antifreeze it was using in its HVAC Chilled Water System to Earthwise Environmental's Formate-based eGuard F. At the time of evaluation, the client's HVAC Chilled Water System was utilizing 30 percent Ethylene Glycol to prevent AHU chilled water coils from freezing in winter. This is a common practice in the Midwest, where coil sag can prevent water from draining in the coils, and large temperature fluctuations can occur in systems that have to be ready to operate within hours.


Project Consulting

When using glycols, there are known efficiency losses as a result of pumping and heat transfer. Pumping losses are due to density of the product and its higher viscosities when compared with water. Compensating for these losses can require increases in pumping horsepower and piping size. Because thermal conductivity of fluids results in heat transfer losses, more chiller tonnage or gpm is needed to prevent a decrease in the system's load.

Solutions

Earthwise Environmental recommended the commercial office building switch to eGuard F for its HVAC Chilled Water System. Studies have shown that the increase in horsepower needed for a 30 percent solution of glycol-based products averages 12.1 percent for Ethylene Glycol and 19.9 percent for Propylene Glycol. Using Earthwise Environmental eGuard F, the increase is only 8 percent, yielding a savings of 4.1 percent for users of Ethylene Glycol and 11.9 percent for Propylene Glycol.

Energy losses with 30 percent glycols are 23.19 percent with Ethylene Glycol and 24.4 percent with Propylene Glycol. Earthwise Environmental's eGuard F offers a heat transfer increase of 2.86 percent over water for a savings in thermo efficiencies of 26.05 percent over Ethylene Glycol and 27.26 percent over Propylene Glycol. Factoring in the gpm needed for heat transfer, eGuard F offers a net savings of 17.6 percent for Ethylene Glycol and 14.86 percent for Propylene Glycol.

Benefits and Results

  • Projecting a $36,856 annual savings in chiller and pump energy costs
  • Expecting an ROI of 2.06 years, with a product and engineering cost of $59,970 and an incentive rate savings of $28,988

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