Solving Excessive Dehumidification Uncovers Unusual Anomaly

July 13, 2022

CIM's PEAK platform helps biopharmaceutical manufacturers achieve operational efficiency across their sites. The success story below is just one example of the PEAK platform catching a fault, which resulted in savings for a biopharmaceutical client.

Issue

CIM's PEAK platform analyzed our client's building management system (BMS) data for opportunities, of which several were uncovered for action. One anomaly of note uncovered was an air handling unit (AHU) was found to be concurrently dehumidifying and humidifying, essentially battling against itself. PEAK automatically created an action for investigation, which prompted the on-site technicians to investigate the issue further.

It was detected that this AHU was being controlled by two separate BMS systems, maintained by two separate maintenance contractors, and there was some corruption in the logic that allowed communication between both systems. This resulted in one half of the system calling for dehumidification while the other side was calling for humidification.

The below data shows a trend of the concurrent humidification and dehumidification with the chilled water valve open 48%, the re-heat valve open 100% and the humidification steam valve open 53.5% at a specific moment in time.

Action

The BMS contractors reviewed, reconfigured and tested the control logic. The trigger for the logic break was identified and removed.

Result

The concurrent humidification and dehumidification has been removed, resulting in substantial energy savings, whilst the life expectancy of the equipment has also been increased due to reduced fluctuations and operating hours.

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