Applying the dry bulb economizer

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BYWILLIAM
J. COAD
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The dry bulb economizer is an

energy conservation technique that
has been used effectively for many
years. I t is one of the few energy
conservation schemes t h a t prevailed even during those years of
underpriced energy, from the mid50s through the mid-70s. Recent
analyses have shown, however, that
it is time to update our perspective
on the use of the air economizer.
For purposes of this discussion,
the dry bulb air economizer is assumed to be that component of an
air handling system consisting of
outdoor air, return air, and exhaust
air dampers that position to mix
outdoor air with r e t u r n air t o
achieve a mixed temperature equal
to a desired cooling supply air temperature, say 55 F, when the outdoor air is below that temperature.
The concept first came under
some criticism and its value was
questioned in the early days of computerized annual energy analyses
and associated operating cost studies. As the use of the economizer
developed, it was employed with
virtually all types of terminal or
psychrometric control systems.
This, combined with the fact that
dual stream (double duct and multizone) systems had emerged as the
commonest type of multiple zone
controlled systems, provided some
rather startling results in the computerized studies. In many cases, a
system with an economizer cost
more to operate than one without
an economizer. The reason was simply that all the air that was heated
in the hot deck, either for control
heat or basic space heat, was heated
from the mixed temperature (55 F )
rather than from the return air

temperature (75 F). As fuel costs

escalated faster than electric energy costs, the economizer often became a cost burden rather than
"free." This feature, coupled with
the fact that there is a sizable investment associated with the economizer (hardware, controls, and real estate), tended to make many designers elect to move in the direction of year-round mechanical cooling (in some cases disguised as a
heat pump).
To compare the operating and investment costs of a heat pump
against those of an economizer that
"heats" from mixed air temperature
is to use the latter as a straw man.
An economizer cycle system that
does not provide mixed air to the
hot deck heating coil should be considered and used as the basis of
comparison.
A second p r o b l e m t h a t h a s
LJ

On this page each m o n t h , t h e author

shares his engineering philosophy by exploring a wide variety of topics, ranging
from fundamentals t o new frontiers, as they
relate to building environmental systems.
Mr. Coad is vice president of Charles J. R.
McClure & Associates and affiliate professor of mechanical engineering at Washington University, S t . Louis, Mo.

HeatingIPipinglAir Conditioning

October 1982

evolved concerning the dry bulb

economizer has been around for
some time and does not relate to
energy b u t to performance (although in many cases the performance problems were solved by the
consumption of sizable quantities
of energy). This problem relates to
the nature of the loads served by a
central chilled water plant and a
fundamental difference between
the operating concepts of the system designers and the system operating staff.
The intent of the system designer
is, generally, that when the outdoor
air is a t or below 55 F, the chilled
water system would be turned off,
and cooling would be provided by
outdoor air. When the outdoor air is
above 55 F , the chilled water plant
would provide the cooling. The first
problem is that if, indeed, 55 Fair is
continued on page 114

continued from page 111

n e e d e d , t h e changeover p o i n t
would normally be closer to 50 F

ample of a typical temperate climate location, this 5 F difference

adds 259 hours of chiller operation

that the chilled water system would

be operated when the outdoor air
temperature exceeded 55 F, this

mid-autumn (say, November 1)and

turned it on in mid-spring (say,

well justified in most cases. To start

up and to bring these chiller plants
down to temperature on a daily or
hourly basis is costly and requires
considerable planning and manpower. Again with St. Louis as an
example, there are statistically 637
hr per year above 50 F between November 1 and March 31. In most
commercial a n d institutional
buildings, not having the plant
available creates no noticeable deficiency because the load time constant is such that the spaces could
"spin through" the higher temperature periods. In those spaces with
more dynamic loads, the space temperature simply climbs, often to the
point of discomfort; but few people
complain about occasional excessive warmth for short periods in the
Serious problems have arisen,
however, in cases in which there are
temperature critical loads, such as
electronic data processing machinery; work intensive spaces, such as
operating rooms and athletic areas;
or sensible gains high enough to
provide excessive normal occupant
discomfort prior to the end of the
"spin through" period. I n these
cases, operators have found that
the chilled water must be made
available to provide even a minimal
acceptable level of performance.
In most such cases, the temperature sensitive spaces represent relatively small percentages of much
larger systems. The operators have
thus, in the interest of energy conservation, started up the chilled water plants to serve those limited
loads, leaving the larger portion of
continued on page 117

HeatinglPipingIAir Conditioning

October 1982

continued from page 114

the connected system on economizer cycle operation. This solution has created additional probThe fixed parasitic plant burdens, such as chilled water pumps,
condenser water pumps, and cooling tower fans, make the specific
power ( K W per ton) quite high.
The chillers cannot be operated a t the extremely low loads imSince performance, in this case,
is the paramount problem, the latter problem has been solved in a
number of ways. I t is not uncommon to see a modification to a large
chiller consisting of a hot gas bypass system to allow it to serve
these low loads. In such cases, the
energy consumed by the chiller
generally exceeds that required for
the load by several hundred per-

HeatinglPipingIAir Conditioning

these observations is that to achieve

successful design with dry bulb air
economizer systems, t h e design
practitioners must:
Configure air handling systems in such a way that heat or reheat is never added after the outdoor air is mixed with return air,
Provide specially designed
tight closeoff dampers for the return air dampers in the economizer
mixing box.
Minimize fan pressure rise or
design for increased air flow (an optimization problem among pressure rise, air flow, fan horsepower,
and cost of lower changeover temperature).
Identify and segregate ternperature critical loads that cannot
"spin through" high dry bulb temperature periods and those that are
not temperature critical such that
they can survive a n occasional
modest space temperature rise.

October 1982

tem in such a way that all of the

loads can be served satisfactorally
with minimum consumption.
The ways of accomplishing the
last item above differ with the relative magnitudes of the critical and
noncritical loads. Most cooling
loads are noncritical, and thus in
most cases, the size of the critical
loads is small compared to the total
loads. In these cases, the most logical design option is first to supplement the chilled water system with
an interconnected small system a t
or near t h e critical loads. T h e
smaller or supplementary systems
can usually be economically air
cooled because they only operate
during lower ambient times. The
second approach is to install a small
chiller, sized to serve only the critical winter loads, in the central
plant if the distribution system is
arranged to operate on the reduced
capacity winter "system" without