http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/04/06/optimum-energy-wants-buildings-to-use-more-software-waste-less-power/ Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:54:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/04/06/optimum-energy-wants-buildings-to-use-more-software-waste-less-power/comment-page-1/#comment-52882 Utah heating Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:03:36 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/?p=19144#comment-52882 a certain physical property of hydraulic pumps called an affinity law, where slowing the motors in the HVAC system by a certain amount results in triple that amount of energy saved. So if you reduce how hard the chiller runs from 100 percent to 70 percent of its full capacity—using a special piece of equipment that feeds electricity to the motors and other equipment in short bursts so as to run them at slower speeds—you’d only be using a third of the original energy, Rothman said. But nobody took this property into account in the days when modern HVAC systems were designed and energy was dirt cheap. a certain physical property of hydraulic pumps called an affinity law, where slowing the motors in the HVAC system by a certain amount results in triple that amount of energy saved. So if you reduce how hard the chiller runs from 100 percent to 70 percent of its full capacity—using a special piece of equipment that feeds electricity to the motors and other equipment in short bursts so as to run them at slower speeds—you’d only be using a third of the original energy, Rothman said. But nobody took this property into account in the days when modern HVAC systems were designed and energy was dirt cheap.

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