A feasibility study on developing a centralized energy management system to provide scattered building HVAC system with expert service

To achieve best energy saving effect without compromising indoor air quality (IAQ) for a cluster of distributed HVAC systems, a feasibility study was carried out on developing a centralized energy management system (CEMS) with expert service via Internet. Currently almost all HVAC systems use non-dedicated commercial SCADA programs and operated by the workforce with limited skill, thus cause the suboptimal operation of HVAC system. As an improvement, a project was conducted on behalf of a property management company in China to develop a CEMS which can generate optimal operating strategy and provide expert service for its twenty building blocks distributed all over China. With the floor area of 200,000 m 2, each building block has now equipped with a modern HVAC and SCADA system. But the operating state and power consumption level are restricted by the operators. Each HVAC system consumes electricity about 8,611,000 kWh/a (¥4,563,830/a). With a potentiality of 10% of power saving with the help of the CEMS, it was estimated that 20 stations would save about 16,000,000 kWh/a (¥8,000,000/a), being equivalent to about 17,000 t of CO 2 emission. While the initial investment of the CEMS was about ¥4,000,000, so the energy saving worked out the payback period of half a year for the project investment.