Cooling Tower Setpoint For Chiller

This hvac training videos scope discusses cooling tower setpoint for a chiller. I specifically take a centrifugal chiller system direction. I go into cooling tower approach and how the chilled water system plays a major role in the decision process. Condenser water setpoint is a very important temperature to decide chiller efficiency.

For great additional HVAC Technician training check out @EngineeringMindset and @acservicetechchannel

#coolingtower #condenserwater #chiller #hvactechnician #chillertech

[santoscruz]

I want to say, thanks for your input and may God bless you and your families.

[mikee]

Excellent explanation. You’re on top of your game. I live in the rust belt and this sounds like a good idea up this way since our temperatures usually cool off at night. I don’t do much chiller work anymore and when I did it was usually in large retail stores that mostly had water cooled screw chillers. The issue I mainly had was getting them started in the morning when the tower water had cooled off overnight when the chiller had shut down. They usually had tower bypass valves that would recirculate condenser water until it warmed up then would start pushing the water out to the tower as it warmed. However they rarely worked because the energy management company didn’t understand how these chillers operated. They usually only installed the condenser water temperature sensor on the outlet of the condenser to the tower and controlled the bypass valve and tower fan off this one sensor. I fought with them for a couple years trying to explain to them why I had to make rounds on an almost daily basis resetting the chiller at multiple locations due to this. They didn’t want to hear they were wrong. As you could probably guess they would see a high temperature on the condenser loop from their 1 sensor, turn on the tower fan and close off the bypass valve and dump a lot of cold water into the condenser which would cause it to fail on oil pressure. At 1 location I experimented and switched their strap on sensor to the water inlet which somewhat improved things by at least sensing the cold water from the tower sump would turn the fan off and begin to recirculate water again until the loop temperature stabilized. Couldn’t convince them to add a sensor to the tower sump to control the fan and relocate the sensor as I did to control the bypass from that. So I just continued to do my daily route to reset the chillers until we eventually lost the contract. It was easy money while it lasted. I pass by one of the stores I used to take care of often and rarely see the cooling tower fans running on a 90 degree day. I guess they showed me👍

[joshstevens]

The tower sp at 80-85° is a decent rule of thumb. The true answer is the manufacturer spec. The carrier 19xrv, under low load situations in mild weather, are looking for 60-65° condenser water. Also the york mc2 likes low condenser water temps. Know your equipment before making changes.

[sergiodjf]

Great explanation & visual animations!💯👏 For lift control, you should control both condenser water temperature & water flow. All chillers have min & max flow and you can adjust those parameters for peak performance.

[jarredallen]

I have experienced many centrifugal chiller plant with fouled up condenser tube. I always advice my customers engineering and chiller plant operator to monitor condenser leaving temperature versus condenser saturation temperature. if the difference is greater than 10 fahrenheit, its time to punch the condenser tubes. and I also detest recycled water for cooling tower use.

[thomascrane]

What temperature outside should we not run a chiller? If it is used for cooling only? And what temp of the return air should it be before cooling enabled please

[olol]

20years ago received a new building and i tried to explain to engineer this issue he would admit, especially in GTA in April

[nakiapringley]

Great video!
Can those rule of thumbs set points be used on other air cooled chillers?

Please keep videos coming as I am just getting into centripetal chillers.

[northface]

Thank you...Can you tell me what surge sounds like...I run a 900 ton York Chiller....And when we have a low load the Chiller makes a steady groaning noise for minutes at a time...Is this considered surge...???

[bobpetereson]

I'm curious as to what you would do if you had a York yk, and those OWT's are so high that you can't possibly have condenser water below 85 degrees. During the summer here in m.d., we commonly experience that with our yk's.. I'm not sure I've ever observed surging. (our cw setpoint is 44 degrees). I do however constantly see what appears to be surging in low load conditions this time of year in the morning. The chiller will be running around 24% and sound like a dying whale. I never see that hot gas bypass operate either. Very confused about this.

[robertpeters]

All the heat energy of the loop plus the power used by the chiller and tower must be rejected by the tower. The most efficient might be a giant coil, but completely impractical. So, we use enormous surface area in the droplets of a cooling tower to exchange heat with the added bonus of cooling from evaporation of part of the water. It is a tradeoff as to how big the pond or tower must be vs energy used in the spray and moving air through the field of the spray. Now, the chiller/compressor must raise the water temperature high enough that the water spray or waterfall can reject the total heat of the combined system. Many factors such as cost of electricity, cost of space for a pond, cost of maintenance on various system components all factor into the optimization of initial cost vs operational and maintenance costs.

[greghawkins]

The York ymc2 chillers can run inverted. Had our 800ton ymc2 running with a 45 degree leaving chilled water temp and a 42 degree entering condensing water temp.

[ricardobmascardojr]

What is the best or ideal energy efficient running 700tons York chiller. We have 3 700 tons chillers and 3 cooling towers but cold weather we only run one each, but hot weather two each. Thank you

[allanfolkes]

Because 80°c is like 26°c we have 2 York here so should the condenser water not cross 80 in C°/F°

[genegonzalez]

lift determines the actual work the chiller compressor is doing. the closer the approach the less energy consumption, and vice versa, remember that chiller efficiency is to produce a large amount of TR tons with the least amount of energy consumption

[Angelo-yjbp]

what happens if you set limits between 60 and 80 and you wet bulb is above 80 without adding the 5 degrees yet like it happens in south florida?

[alihatami]

In yk's we cant go under 7.5 barg condenser pressure because evaporator pressure drops and we must open hot gas.

[Noypihvac]

Did you able experience chiller use geothermal cooling system?

[donsvideos]

Thermal storage, how about 39deg f chillwater? Oh 134a gas

[allanfolkes]

Hi good day the temperatures your in reference to on this video is C° / F°