mesa177 wrote
honestly, not much because our power consumption is very statistically stable and predictable throughout the hours of the day throughout the month and even the overshoots in consumption rate is predictable in pneumonia season (end November till end of February) and summer season (where ironically most accidents happen, beginning July till end of August). but I'm open to knowing if I can optimize this power consumption rate.
Well, that's simple - first - monitoring who is exactly consuming power. If it is HVAC - maybe there is way to increase efficiency, plus improving heat insulation (and as you mentioned highest consumption are at seasons when you need AC at most), plus detecting when room is set to cold/hot, but everything leaking thru opened door/window (door/window open switch and getting data from HVAC if it is on in this room).
It might be also other losses, such as reactive power, if there is a lot power supplies without PFC.
mesa177 wrote
Do you mind elaborating on this idea? it's interesting especially since we are thinking of re-modelling the 4th floor at the hospital (the regular patients floor)
Well, hospitals kind of more difficult, than private apartments. Private apartment on my experience there is few basics can decrease a lot energy consumption and improve comfort: floor insulation, wall insulation, window insulation (ones i see in most of apartments in Lebanon even passing air on strong wind! i am not talking about heat losses, which is huge as well), proper doors.
I'm not HVAC engineer to have handhelf FLIR device, but i've seen it is perfect to see "bad spots".
http://www.energy.gov.za/EEE/Projects/Building%20Energy%20Audit%20Training/Training%20Modules/Building%20Energy%20Auditing%20Module%209_Final.pdf
I never seen insulation mentioned at page 9.5. I guess floor insulation also needed, but as far as i know hospitals required to have special "dustless" floor, that is resistant also to chemicals and etc. I dont know if this requirement valid for Lebanon, but it makes heat insulation for it a bit difficult.
I guess you use centralized HVAC? In this case this pdf is good. But optimizing it not easy at all.
If you are using split air conditioning as well, try to check about inverter A/C,they are more expensive, but in few words - they dont work on/off principle as "regular" ones, they supply exactly needed amount of power for compressor (same principle as in industrial variable frequency drive), reducing load spikes, and in average they consume less power. I tested them, they perform much better than regular ones.
Here is environmental monitoring i have in one of server rooms:
Spikes are usual electricity cutoffs, you should know them :) After them, even generator kicks fast - A/C is for a while in "protection mode".
It helps a lot to detect A/C failures, inefficiency and etc(it has also alert for employees, if early failure detected). I am considering to monitor also current, outer unit temperare intake/exhaust, just need to redesign board monitoring device for better cost efficiency.
Hehe, I actually laughed a bit; in the South, the main electricity feed is so weak and unstable that we never, ever use it (not even on a toaster). The "backup" word is in reality a full time operation of the diesel engines. As such, we have 2: the main one which runs early morning at 6am till 7pm at night, and the smaller one which runs at 7pm at night till 6am morning and acts as a standby generator. There is a third generator that we rarely use, but it's considered a backup for the second generator. Anyway, all the generators are subjected to preventive and corrective maintenance contracts (for the sake of spare parts mostly, and for speed in replies to job requests) in addition to our in house maintenance daily chekups.
Considering south, i did at one of customers simple device to monitor EDL, here is visual part i am using sometimes:
It is also linked to IoT network, and it makes decisions, based on such data, for example now, at night, power is stable, and it is considerably cheaper than diesel supplied power, so why to not use it?
Also using inverter UPS (but losses should be considered as well) will allow you to have stable power.
I meant this generators are built mostly for backup purposes, sure they are used in Lebanon not as backup, but as main power source. And thats not good for their lifetime.
Do you monitor current consumption on each phase?
And about maintenance, i guess it depends on company, but what i seen, how maintenance done - i didn't liked. Good estimation of maintenance quality are lifespan of generator, if you ever had engines dead there.
Also another matter is costs, one of industrial clients has genset with Deutz engine, and some fancy controller with RS485, i guess DSEGenset, when controller failed, local guys offered him replacement about $2.5k, while i got for him for approx $200, and connected by myself (since it is identical, just few screws and wires, and saving/restoring settings over interface). (sidenote: i am not sure in precise numbers, it was years ago, but still working perfect)