In April 2019, Innovas Technologies commissioned a Helios Tube Cleaning System® serving a 2000-ton Trane chiller at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln (UNL) central chilled water plant. The plant, a professionally managed central plant is operated to best practice standards in all areas including water treatment and chiller management. In alignment with their high level of operational standards, the UNL team are always looking for methods to advance the efficiency of their operations. After learning about the Helios TCS at the East Lansing B1G & Friends conference in 2017, UNL leaders believed the system could contribute to improved chiller efficiency and reduced chiller maintenance. After the conference UNL commenced a detailed study of the Helios TCS technology to evaluate if the positive results its peer institutions experienced with the system could be replicated at UNL. After technical reviews, data analysis and visits with references, UNL decided to install and run the system.
Fast forward to September 2019 and the Helios TCS had run in Lincoln for 5 months, doing exactly what it was built to do….keep chiller tubes clean and improve chiller efficiency. The Helios TCS-equipped chiller operated with stable condenser approach temperatures throughout the 2019 cooling season. Contrarily, in 2018 the same chiller running prior to the Helios TCS installation exhibited the high condenser approach temperatures commonly found in many chilled water plants, with condenser approach temperatures increasing by more than 4 degrees F over the course of the cooling season. The following chart highlights these differences in condenser approach temperature performance for the chiller over the two consecutive years, before the Helios TCS installation (2018) and again after Helios TCS installation (2019).
The below results are consistently experienced by our customers and they, like UNL, are operating their chiller plants under a new paradigm with no tube fouling occurring inside their chillers.
