Today’s HVAC drives can deliver major benefits in commercial, residential and industrial buildings. ABB’s new checklist for HVAC consultants aims to ensure that neither consultants nor their clients miss out. “Variable speed drives selection for building services: Checklist for HVAC consultants” highlights all the drive features that can help to deliver the best possible performance from the HVAC system.
In recent years, the performance of variable speed drives has improved dramatically. They offer greater energy efficiency and lower energy bills, reduced maintenance and more flexibility for end users, as well as faster installation and commissioning for contractors. Yet an estimated 70% of building services consultants may not be using the most up-to-date specifications when selecting variable speed drives for their HVAC installations.
The reason is that consultants do not actually purchase drives, so they are not always targeted with the latest information by manufacturers. ABB’s checklist is designed to arm them with the knowledge they need. It provides a definitive guide to all the product features and associated benefits available from today’s bespoke HVAC drives.
Features of particular benefit to the building services sector include the ability to pre-program drives with several HVAC-specific application I/Os, such as supply and return fans, cooling tower fans and booster pumps. Connecting drives to a HVAC system is made easy by selecting pre-defined HVAC macros or by simply connecting to one of several built-in fieldbus options. Also, many of today’s drives have built-in PID controllers that allow them to cope with demanding pump and fan functions without the added expense of an external controller.
Significant advances in technology have seen the development of chokes that can reduce harmonic emissions by up to 25%. From February 2008, a new product standard will be mandatory for products connected to a 400 V network, limiting the current harmonic pollution of a single product. The new publication also includes extra information on harmonics and EMC compliance, to help consultants make the right recommendations for each building.
The product-related checklist is further complemented by a separate supplier checklist, which aims to help consultants ensure that drives will be backed by the right level of support once purchased.
The brochure also points consultants to a complete drive technical specification that can be downloaded from ABB’s website, and easily cut and pasted into any specification. Visit www.abb.co.uk/hvacdrives and click on “Proforma Specification” to download the HVAC Drive Technical Specification.