home > news > VSD CT fans
Hong Kong's Building Energy Code finally adopts VSD (frequency inverters) for cooling tower fans8 August 2019
John Herbert
Director
More than a decade ago John Herbert wrote a technical article for the BEAM
society newsletter, published in 2006, now you have to remember at
that time cooling towers were still relatively "new" in Hong Kong.
The moratorium had only been lifted six years earlier in 2000,
and then only in certain districts. Gradually new districts were
included expanding the possibilities for cooling towers, and very
slowly gaining popularity.
Anyway, the 2006 cooling tower article focused on, and advocated
best practice for efficient operation of cooling towers,
and that included Variable Speed Drives (frquency invertors) for
cooling tower fan speed control. There are several reasons
to change the cooling tower motor speed, including better
control and the most obvious being energy saving.
BEAM Society newsletter 2006 Cooling Towers by John Herbert (pdf)
Fast foward to 2019, in the latest version of the Building Energy
Code (BEC) 2018 version, that came in to effect in 2019, including
a new cooling tower fan efficiency requirement and clause 6.12.5.
Translating that clause into plain english, essentially it means
variable speed drive (frequency inverters) are mandatory for
cooling tower fans installations, nearly twenty years after the
cooling tower moratorium was lifted.
Coincidentally, the HKSAR Government also recently launched its
Decarbonising Hong Kong public consultation in 2019. Let's
hope, given the urgency and leadership opportunities, it
doesnt take as many years again to implement and adopt
obvious energy saving measures.
About the Author
John Herbert is a
veteran engineer with more than 30 years engineering experience, educated in
the United Kingdom he has worked across Asia for more than two decades
engaged by international and local companies. He is a Hong Kong Registered Energy
Assessor (REA) and BEAM Professional.
