How FIN Can Simplify Chiller Control Deployment

Here at J2 Innovations, we’re reimagining what relationships look like between equipment manufacturers and BAS using our state of the art FIN Framework and leveraging the power of tagging and data modeling. Here’s a look at how FIN can simplify your chiller control deployment and give you - and your users more visibility into performance data.

Going Beyond the Chiller Equipment

The commissioning process for a chiller is a huge job. It typically involves a BAS application engineer whose role it is to implement the sequence of operation by creating a custom solution that pulls together the complete system. Doing this requires extensive knowledge and expertise of chilled water systems and lots of labor.

The opportunity exists for chiller manufacturers to go beyond the basic safeties and control of just the chiller equipment. They could provide a complete, integrated chilled water system that includes the chiller, pumps, cooling towers, and associated valves and sensors. This holistic approach can then help optimize the performance of the system as a whole to save energy and operating costs.

FIN’s comprehensive collection of technology and applications provides the most complete toolkit for OEMs and their developers to productize a complete chilled water system for provisioning, control, and a better user experience.

Provisioning and startup

Imagine if deploying a chilled water system was a matter of just running a simple wizard? With the help of a software appliance approach, a step by step process could be taken to provision an entire chilled water system.

This would result in a product that provides a foolproof way to deploy a complex system with the OEM’s control and optimization knowledge built right in. Therefore, the overall performance and reliability would be maximized right from the day it was started up.

Control Engine

For a chilled water plant, the control system integrates and orchestrates the components of the chiller, cooling towers, and associated pumps. FIN can be the control engine that implements the automation and optimization strategies. Through the use of FIN’s block or line programming (or both), an OEM can implement and protect their intellectual property while still providing ease of use for technicians and users.

Enhance your Equipment’s UI

The user experience (UI) can influence the ease of deployment and overall quality of the provisioning. Through the use of a software appliance (typically on a touch screen or mobile device), the procedure for check out and system startup is a better and more productive experience. For System Integrators, this helps streamline the commissioning process and also make it easier to integrate into the building automation system.

The FIN Framework is well known for its graphics and dashboards, which can easily translate to touchscreen interfaces. When you build using FIN, you have access to easy graphics and wizards to create a better user interface and display. These displays are preconfigured and engineered from the factory to easily present performance data, giving you a simpler view of a complex system.

Performance Data

For a chiller manufacturer, it means that once your equipment leaves you, you have zero visibility around its set-up or performance - unless it malfunctions and one of your own technicians has to be deployed to physically diagnose the problem.

With FIN’s Edge2Cloud remote connectivity capabilities, OEMs and equipment manufacturers have the option to implement remote connectivity to the equipment they have supplied on site, and monitor performance over time. This has the potential to generate huge amounts of aggregated data across multiple customers for analysis of how their equipment performs under various conditions. These kinds of insights could help identify optimization opportunities and make software updates automatically.

With FIN, an OEM and BAS integrator can collaboratively create better systems to ensure maximized chiller plant performance. The OEM provides embedded control knowledge and optimization strategies for their product. Their appliance helps standardize the complexity of a central plant, and provides normalized data for easy consumption. For the System Integrator, this means they can deliver an integrated intelligent building project with confidence. Ultimately, this provides a better user experience for facility managers, energy managers, technicians, and end users.

Want to learn more or take FIN for a Spin? Contact sales for a demo.