ConEdison has offered bonus incentives for VFD installations. The incentive is capped at 70% of project costs. The incentive amount is so high that it may pay for 100% of the equipment cost! In this case, the commercial building owner needs only to pay for the installation labor. Commercial buildings must install their VFD’s by 10/31/2019.
Oh by the way, we had a great time with President Trump at the White House Easter Egg Roll….so much fun!
Commercial buildings can install VFD’s on their condenser water pumps. We have seen many building owners that keep their condenser water pumps, and cooling towers running all day and all night. Buildings keep the pumps and fans on “spinning reserve” to provide condenser water service to Tenant supplemental Air Conditioning Units. Buildings that install VFD’s (virtually free under this program) would save at least 30% in energy costs.
There are over 400 chilled water plants in New York City commercial buildings without VFD’s on their chillers. Each one of these chilled water plants has a at least a 400 ton chiller with a 250 hp Motor. If everyone of these chilled water plants installed a VFD on their chillers they would save at least 30% in energy costs. This could amount to 48,000,000 kWh per year at a collective cost savings of over $8M annually. Further it would reduce greenhouse gas emission by over 200,000 tons of CO2 annually!
Installing EC Motors on exhaust fans save a lot of energy, not just at the motor, but at the air conditioning system. These motors are fractional horsepower motors, usually 1/3 Horsepower or less. However typically there are many of these fans in a building, and collectively they could cause a significant amount of conditioned air to enter a building. Reducing this intake of unconditioned air during low occupancy conditions may result in significant energy cost savings.
EC Motors inherently come built in with variable frequency drives. We have helped customers replace hundreds of fan coil units with EC motors and controls. Fan coil units could be left on all night even if the landlord’s chilled water plant is shut down. New fan coil units with EC Motors with built in VFD’s will shut down during off hours and modulate speed to keep space temperatures. In many cases, incumbent fan coil units are so old that they need to run at 100% speed and never satsify the space temperature. Click here to view a case study!
