(86g) Evaluation of Effectiveness of Condensate Recovery and Its Reuse As a Make-Up Water Requirement in Chilled Water Plants At the University of Alabama At Birmingham

Collection of air handling unit (AHU) condensate has become an essential part of the new building design codes; many of the new buildings being constructed throughout the world are incorporating this technique in their buildings. However, installation of condensate recovery systems in the existing building is still not very popular amongst building/facility operators. The majority of the federal buildings, universities, and other institutional buildings have already installed CRSs in their buildings. Although, the weather conditions in Alabama are very favorable for a successful condensate recovery system, implementation of these projects is surprisingly unpopular. This article discusses a case study of Condensate Recovery Systems installed on the various campus buildings of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). This article highlights the need and importance of CRSs in commercial, industrial, and Institutional buildings throughout the state of Alabama, given that majority of the southeastern counties in the state are more vulnerable to drought conditions. It is therefore necessary, to increase awareness of water conservation amongst building/facility operators in Alabama. This article also discusses how capturing and recycling condensate water helps in achieving water and energy conservation goals. Condensate Recovery Systems have been installed in eight campus buildings at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the collected condensate water is supplied to the central chilled water plant to meet the make-up water requirements. The quality and temperature of the condensate water has an advantage of reuse in chilled water plants.  Total water consumption of the chilled water plant in year 2012 was 310,199 CCF which is reduced by 0.23% compared with that of year 2011. The UAB Facilities Management Department seeks to reduce the make-up water requirement by recycling condensate water in to the chilled water plants. In this study, the condensate water collected in 3 different buildings has been continuously monitored using water-level data-loggers at an interval of one minute frequency to estimate annual recovery of condensate water from each air handling unit. More than 2 billion gallons of condensate is collected and recycled from June 2012 through April 2013 out of which 1.67 billion gallons of condensate water was collected and recycled during cooling season of 2012. The primary goal of this research is to evaluate the feasibility of condensate collection systems at the Birmingham, Alabama location by analyzing effects of indoor and outdoor operating conditions on production of condensate which includes weather parameters, air supply rate, the areal size of the building, and tonnage of the system. A regression model has been also developed to predict the amount of condensate water from air handling units which can be used to determine the feasibility of future condensate collection system around the UAB campus.