Tolga Candan

Grundfos on October 9 hosted a technical seminar in Dubai that highlighted retrofit opportunities for pumps.

Explaining the importance of retrofitting pumps, Tolga Candan, Business Development Manager, Energy Optimization & Retrofitting at Grundfos, said that whenever building and villa owners choose to retrofit their pumps, they not only reduce energy usage, but they also see high savings over a period of time, owing to the build-up of energy efficiency.

Offering an example of a retrofit project, Candan said: “We retrofitted the pumps of the air conditioning system at the Sheraton Dubai Mall of the Emirates Hotel. In this particular case, although our pumps were installed in the facility, the contractor had bypassed the main CU351 controller and directly connected the pumps to the building management system, thus making our variable frequency drives (VFDs) merely soft start and soft stop.

“We rectified the problem by connecting the pumps to our controller and running a 500-metre cable from our DP sensor, located on the 25th floor of the building, to the pumps in the basement. We also replaced the CU351 controller with the CU352 controller, fitted with an added communication IP module CIM 500, and the VFDs were connected individually to the CU352.”

He further explained that initially, the air conditioning system was running on two pumps of 75 kW, which consumed 25 kW each, but after the retrofit implementation, the hotel needed only one pump that consumed 26 kW, and the same level of comfort was maintained.

Candan added that the entire retrofit process resulted in a reduction of energy usage by 576 kWh, and the savings were estimated to be AED 90,000 annually.

Speaking on the challenges faced in the pump retrofit market, Candan added: “There appears to be some scepticism about energy savings and the return on investment from retrofitting of pumps, and we are trying to overcome these hurdles through awareness programmes. However, there are some clients who are brave enough to carry out energy checks and retrofit their systems.”

Another hurdle in the GCC region, he cited, was the over-specification and installation of over-size pumps, and this particular practice, he said, drives up the energy usage and costs.