Customer Success Story | CITIC Pacific: Boldly Challenging What's Possible for Sustainability and Energy Efficiency Excellence with Trane Tracer® Ensemble® Chiller Plant Control System

Customer Success Story | CITIC Pacific: Boldly Challenging What’s Possible for Sustainability and Energy Efficiency Excellence with Trane Tracer® Ensemble® Chiller Plant Control System

Project Overview

CITIC Tower, a 27-year-old landmark building with 33 floors of office space and retail shops, embarked on a significant upgrade of its air-conditioning systems in 2019 to enhance energy efficiency and sustainability. This initiative aligns with CITIC Tower's commitment to reducing its environmental footprint and optimizing tenant and visitor comfort. The project involves the replacement of existing Trane chillers with modern & high energy-efficient chillers and implementing the advanced Trane Tracer® Ensemble® chiller plant control system.

The Mission

CITIC Tower's mission is to create a comfortable and sustainable environment for its occupants while minimizing energy consumption and operational costs. The original plan was to switch from air cooled chiller to water cooled chiller under the EMSD Pilot Scheme. However, after careful consideration, it was decided to explore alternative solutions to meet the building's unique needs. In response, Trane Service Hong Kong, as the maintenance contractor and Trane chiller specialist, provided a comprehensive solution that included the highly efficient Trane Tracer® Ensemble® system. This system is designed to optimize the performance of the chiller plant, ensuring maximum energy savings and consistent cooling.

Trane’s Solution

Trane meticulously analyzed the cooling load profile of CITIC Tower using a 365-day handwritten chiller operation log and electricity usage data provided by CITIC Tower property management. Based on this data, the Trane Tracer® Ensemble® chiller plant control system was implemented to optimize the performance of the newly installed chillers. The energy saving strategies implemented include:

Trane Tracer Chiller Plant Optimization: Utilizing Trane Tracer® Ensemble® chiller plant system for precise variable speed pump adjustments to match cooling demand. This advanced control system ensures that the chillers operate at their most efficient levels, regardless of the load conditions.
Selection of Highly Efficient Chillers: Choosing chillers with high Coefficient of Performance (COP) to ensure maximum energy efficiency. The overall resultant COP of Trane chillers selected exceeds the BEC requirement (2018) by 32% in part load efficiency and 15% in full load efficiency.
Regular Maintenance by Trane Well-Trained Technicians: Ensuring the chillers are well-maintained by Trane’s well-trained technicians to uphold their efficiency and performance over time. This ensures consistent operation, reduced maintenance requirements, and minimal downtime, enhancing the overall comfort and satisfaction of building occupants.

High Reduction of Electricity Consumption: The enhancements have successfully lowered CITIC Tower's energy consumption by over 2,200 MWh annually, representing about 30% of the total electricity used by the chiller plant system.

Key ECO Prize: By integrating eco-friendly and high-efficiency chillers, CITIC Tower has minimized its environmental impact. These upgrades support the building's commitment to sustainable practices and contribute to its long-term sustainability goals including various key ECO prizes for certification of the ultimate result such as Platinum grade award in HKGBC, Zero-Carbon Ready Building Certification and Platinum grade award in LEED.

Through these upgrades, CITIC Tower has achieved its goals of enhanced comfort, sustainability, and energy efficiency, setting a benchmark for sustainable and efficient cooling solutions in Hong Kong's commercial landscape.

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Trane Service Hong Kong

Hong Kong Air-conditioning Parts Centre

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