PH-97-04-1 -- Application of Building Precooling to Reduce Peak Cooling Requirements PDF

Describes a building cooling control strategy developed and tested for a 1.4 million ft2 (130,000 m2) office building near Chicago. The aim was to utilise building thermal mass to limit the peak cooling load for continued building operation in the event of loss of one of the four central chiller units. The algorithm was developed and evaluated through simulation then evaluated by tests on two identical buildings. The precooling control strategy limited the peak load to 75% of capacity and was an economical alternative to the purchase of an additional chiller unit.

KEYWORDS: year 1997, Buildings, offices, USA, precooling, controls, algorithms, testing, calculating, economics, chillers, peak load