At JEA we have worked with District Energy Systems (DES: chilled water) and the facilities building operations group for several years. Our responsibilities include application integration, process improvement (i.e., chilled water plant reliability/ efficiency/ productivity) and program support (i.e. standards & procedures development/ project management).
Wayne A Dunn PE authored and signed the DES letter of comfort that supported the $50 Million bond application and financing of JEA’s chilled water program; this letter addressed the business opportunity DES represents for JEA and the citizens of Jacksonville.
Other E. W. Dunn projects at JEA include project management of DES completion, commissioning, and enhancement work at all three chilled water plants along with specification development for renewal of the facilities SCADA maintenance contract.
We have worked to improve the efficiency of JEA’s utility class chilled water plants to less than .8 kW/ ton overall (ie. including distribution pumping). This was accomplished by using the SCADA system to optimize equipment control. JEA is already a market leader with the use of industrial controls—the water group is using an enterprise SCADA management tool to effectively operate a large network of pumping stations across the entire service territory; the system is even capable of reacting to weather data. JEA considered applying the same concept with weather reference controls for heat rejection and feed forward/ feedback loop controls on mechanically connected variable flow equipment.
E. W. Dunn managed a JEA related project that improved cooling tower water treatment processes by using an environmentally friendly ozone system; this reduces equipment wear and allows water blow-down to flow to the storm drain. This was another JEA first that could easily lead to market transformation that eliminates the use of harmful water treatment chemicals in cooling tower circuits. Tied to this project is consideration for the use of reclaim water as supply water for cooling towers.
Further JEA productivity efforts combine both SCADA and enterprise integration in development of a central control area where operations will oversee the automated operation of all DES chiller plants as well as event (alarm) management supporting JEA facilities. Operations will be monitored using PI and Metasys. Work coordination and reporting will be done with Maximo. Information retrieval will be handled directly through eB or from Maximo asset data linking to eB. E. W. Dunn helped stand up the control center that provides operating support for this critical infrastructure.
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