Improve cooling tower efficiency for a logistics building

Cooling Tower Retrofit, Singapore

Project Background

Prior to deploying cooling towers with an EC system, the conventional cooling towers with AC belt-driven fans caused many problems due to the inefficient system and expensive maintenance. This led to the idea of replacing the old cooling towers with energy-efficient EC cooling towers.  

Notably, the use of EC fans in its cooling towers helps the building to increase its Green Mark Score

Application

As we were requested to provide high-efficient cooling tower fans with low noise and high reliability, in total 16 pieces of ebm‑papst  AxiBlade EC fans with AxiTop were installed for the two cooling towers. That is 8 EC fans per cooling tower. The reason why more fans are used in every cooling tower is because of the extended benefits this approach brings. 

Conventionally very large AC belt-driven fans are used in order to generate high airflow. Due to the weight and complex structure of the large fans, it is impossible to precisely balance the rotating impeller, which leads to frequent operation failures.  On the contrary, our approach of replacing one large fan with several smaller fans running in parallel operation brings flexibility in a compact design, more uniform airflow and air distribution, easier installation and much higher energy efficiency.  

According to our measurement, we managed to help building owner achieve 20-25% energy savings after EC fans are installed. 

Impressed by our high-efficient cooling tower EC fans, the building then decided to further improve the  controllability of the cooling tower system by installing our TouchPad HMI to better monitor and operate cooling tower fans on site.

Benefits

Our GreenTech EC fans offer maximum operational reliability as all fans have undergone a series of mandatory rigorous tests. The robust design is built to last in a harsh environment. The compact fan size makes installation easier thus minimises the on-site labour for fan installation. 

The EC fan itself comes as a complete system consisting of motor, impeller and integrated variable frequency drive. No extra components are needed. 

100% controllable fan speed enables more energy savings and durable operation.  

Thanks to the long service life of these EC fans, the maintenance on cooling towers is minimal. Simple visual check on vibration or loose wiring (if any) is sufficient.

Additionally, with our local tailor-made TouchPad HMI device that is able to connect to BMS, display  a range of fan parameters (running speed, input power etc.) and provide touchscreen control on fans, fan status is able to be controlled and monitored conveniently.