Electricity end-use characteristics of air-cooled chillers in hotels in Hong Kong

This paper presents the operating efficiency of air-cooled chillers in three existing hotels and investigates the extent to which the annual electricity consumption can decrease by improving their efficiency. Chillers in these hotels tend to be improperly staged, causing their seasonal efficiency to rise by 0.05–0.12 kW/kW from a full load efficiency of 0.32 kW/kW. When chiller sequencing is restored, their seasonal efficiency could be enhanced to 0.34 kW/kW, which corresponds to an 8.8–22.7% drop in their annual electricity consumption. It is possible to further decrease the annual electricity consumption by 27.0–38.6% when the chillers operate under floating condensing temperature control instead of head pressure control. The implications of improved chiller efficiency for reducing the electricity demand of hotels are discussed.