Storm Technologies recently finished retrofitting two 32,500 CFM makeup air units (MAU) equipped with direct fire gas burners as well as dual ammonia coils for a Michigan based customer. Each MAU had a factory installed control system that had malfunctioned. Any changes to setpoints required operators to climb up to the roof to manually adjust control signals using a handheld analog signal generator. This task was, of course, time-consuming for operators as well as highly inefficient for MAU operations. Storm Technologies removed the old control systems and installed Allen-Bradley CompactLogix based control systems with graphics on Ignition. Additional temperature sensors were installed to give operators accurate readings for "intermediate" air (after the burner but before the ammonia coils). This controls upgrade provided the customer with plantwide access to the status and control of each MAU. Automated temperature control, blower speed, and exhaust speed was restored. Additional manual backup was installed to give the customer control redundancy.
Storm Technologies' built-in automation features improve the useability and functionality of our control system.
Energy Savings- Our customer is estimating the automated modulation of burner controls will save them over 150,000 thm of gas energy annually. This results in an estimated savings of over $60,000 per year.
Workload reduction- Each time an operator needed to make a change to the burner setpoint they had to climb up to the roof to make manual adjustments with a handheld analog signal generator, which were a guess since there was not accurate intermediate air temperature readings inside either MAU. This new control system saves multiple daily trips to the roof for refrigeration operators, eliminating wasted time as well as unneeded exposure to high-risk snow and ice-covered ladders and rooftops.
