SIPP keeping COOOOL in sunny Florida.

One of CTC’s premier SIPP partners, Bill Gukeisen Inc., has come up with new twist on an old story. Bill had a client in Sarasota, Florida with a 15-story, upscale condominium. The building was equipped with two cooling towers and evaporator towers, and its control system was failing. Although HVAC contractors are typically locked into a handful of controls providers for building systems, Bill decided to propose CTC’s Blue Fusion, 5300 series controller for a replacement project.

When Bill offered the CTC solution and demonstrated the added technology built into the Blue Fusion controller, he sealed the deal.

The Blue Fusion’s ability to communicate using Modbus makes it simple for the pump drives (one per tower) to communicate their status to each other and coordinate lead-lag conditions.

Each cooling tower pump continuously cascades water onto its associated evaporator at a rate determined by its set point temperature. The “lead” pump starts up as the building temperature calls for cooling and the “lag” pump kicks in when the demand calls for additional cooling. Using Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) to control the pumps provides a bonus for this retrofit system: energy savings.

The Blue Fusion can soft start the drives when they are called for and avoid large in-rush currents. As demand drops, they can cut back in small steps down to minimum speed and run at a reduced current draw.

The owners of the building love to see that electric meter dial spinning so slowly!

The contractors loved the idea that they could make setpoint adjustments with a local HMI and could also connect over the building’s LAN using their PC’s browser. Using a standard browser, the contractors can “see” what’s happening in the system and make any adjustments they deem necessary. They don’t have to climb onto the rooftop of a 15-story building to tweak the system. Since the system requires 24/7/365 uptime, remote connectivity is a real bonus.

CTC’s local HMI provides system information for the HVAC technicians, such as VFD data, current (amperage), frequency, and RPM of the pump motors. Setpoints can be adjusted via the HMI and via the Web connection. The HMI also provides alarms and alerts in the event of abnormal conditions, and allows setpoint and other adjustments over the network.

The Blue Fusion controller completes the job by constantly monitoring the status of three closed-loop pumps that continuously circulate “house water.” These are critical to ensure that the system remains charged and ready to provide additional cooling via the chillers.

Bill has already begun preparing additional proposals for local HVAC contractors with similar upgrade requests. His 25+ years of experience in the industry and his ability to think outside the box has yielded a solid control scheme with Web-enabled connectivity for a classic application. It’s very, very COOOOL!

Bill Gukeisen Inc. is one of CTC’s first official SIPP partners. He has already successfully applied our Blue Fusion controllers in five related applications in the Sarasota area. Bill joined CTC’s Systems Integrator Partners Program in January 2011. Reach Bill Gukeisen Inc. at 941-302-8201/This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you are a system integrator or know an integrator who may be interested, give us a call at 888-818-2600, and we’ll fill you in on all there is to know about CTC’s SIPP program.