Successive generations of variable-speed drives (VSDs) bring enormous benefits to buildings, whether commercial, residential or industrial. Yet many of these benefits are not widely recognised. As a result, building operators could be missing out on significant cost and time savings available to them.  When specifying drives, consultants are urged to review their specification requirements and ensure that the selected drives have, as a minimum, the features contained within these checklists.

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To support this, ABB Drives UK has prepared a seven-page online guide as a definitive checklist to all the products and services features available from their HVAC drives. It highlights many of the new drive features that can help deliver the best possible performance from the motor-driven fluid applications.

The performance of variable speed inverter drives continues to improve as manufacturers develop new performance algorithms for improved energy efficiency and lower energy bills, reduced maintenance and more flexibility for end users, as well as faster installation and commissioning for contractors.

New generations of drives have been specifically designed the match the HVAC applications and BEMS/BMS sector including improved harmonics and communication networking. Features of benefit to the HVAC industry include the inclusion within many drives of intelligent pump functions such as level control, soft pipe filling, sleep and boost, pump cleaning, pump protection, flow calculations and multi-pump control.

Building control networks

Connecting drives to a water plant’s control system is made easy by selecting pre-defined macros or by simply connecting to one of several built-in fieldbus options. Also, many of today’s drives have built-in PID controllers that allow them to cope with demanding pump and fan functions without the added expense of an external controller.

But it’s not just product features that have moved with the times. VSD suppliers are acutely aware of the need to support customers throughout the life-cycle of their installation and offer a host of services. These include energy, productivity and harmonics appraisals, installation and start-up services and preventive maintenance plans.

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