I am modeling a 50,000 sf college cafeteria. The campus central plant boiler will provide steam to the cafeteria through a utility tunnel at basement level. Inside the basement, steam will be passed through a shell and tube heat exchanger to provide heat to the building hot water loop, as well as provide heating as needed in the condenser water loop via a direct steam injection tank and the SHW loop via a steam injection tank.
Energy Plus 8.5 has a steam boiler component with associated piping, steam traps, condensate pumps, and steam-to-air coil components. It does not currently support a steam-to-water heat exchanger or steam injection tank components. The available heat exchanger objects are for plant hydronic fluids only. The shell and tube heat exchanger will have an efficiency loss, while the direct steam injection tanks have no process loss (all energy in the steam heats the water) but do have tank losses. Since I can't model the system directly, I'm looking for suggested work-arounds. Could this system be modeled as district hot water system instead? Assuming a representative heat loss for the three steam components could be estimated, could that factor be applied to the district hot water system energy use to provide an adjusted district heat use? The same factor would be applied to the Baseline model output, assuming we use Addendum ai, G3.1.1.3.1, Purchased Heat Only.
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Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5914 thumbs up
December 9, 2016 - 10:45 am
You might want to look at the District Energy Systems v2 document as another option for modeling the district system.
Under ai or DESv2 Option 1 you could model the hot water system in the building and factor the efficiency of the heat exchanger in the determination of the energy rate for the steam.
Vernon Smith
Principal EngineerSmith Energy Engineers, LLC
December 9, 2016 - 12:58 pm
Marcus,
Thank you for your prompt reply. DESv2 Option 1 will not be viable for this project because of the point limitations. Would Option 2 work? Thank you!
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5914 thumbs up
December 9, 2016 - 1:44 pm
Potentially but you would need to model all the upstream equipment.
Vernon Smith
Principal EngineerSmith Energy Engineers, LLC
December 21, 2016 - 3:37 pm
Hi Marcus,
A quick request for clarification.
Is 90.1-2007 Addenum ai, if used under a LEED 2009 NC project, have the EAc1 point restrictions similar to DESv2 Option 1?
Secondly, if using DESv2 Option 2, and modeling the upstream equipment, can the steam system be modeled as a hot water system with an efficiency factor for the steam-to-water energy conversion?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5914 thumbs up
December 22, 2016 - 10:53 am
No it does not have the point restrictions.
Maybe. You would need to demonstrate that there would be equivalency in energy use/cost and provide a thorough justification for doing so.