Development of a modular calculation and analysis tool for the planning process of energy efficient industrial cooling supply systems

Abstract

Industrial cooling supply systems represent an essential component of many industrial production systems. Since these systems are responsible for a significant share of the final energy consumption of the industrial sector, the successful implementation of suitable energy efficiency measures can not only save costs, but also significantly reduce the CO2 emissions associated with the provision of energy. The planning and implementation of the required measures is often assisted by energy consultancies. In the potential analysis phase, existing or planned cooling supply systems are analysed and mapped in various degrees of detail to determine efficiency and flexibility potentials. To determine these potentials, temperature influences, partial machine load behaviours and waste heat utilizations have to be taken into account. Due to their high complexity, the energy and cost-related analyses are usually very time-consuming.To support energy departments and consultancies regarding such analyses, we developed a Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)-based approach and programme that can be used to compile and analyse general industrial cooling supply systems in a modular and library-oriented way. Considering time-dependent framework conditions, respective machine loads and occurring heat flows, the approach integrates predefined main characteristics (e.g., the overall system efficiency, CO2 emissions or system costs) for each configuration. Furthermore, the programme offers the possibility to compare several configurations based on user-defined criteria such as total cost or CO2 emissions and thus, to determine the most cost- or energy-efficient configuration. Within this study, we applied our approach to data of an industrial use case and analysed alternative configurations to minimize cost and CO2 emissions by maximizing the overall system efficiency and to initiate more in-depth analyses by energy departments and consultancies in a targeted manner.