WO2023287349A1

WO2023287349A1 - A district management system

Info

Publication number: WO2023287349A1
Application number: PCT/SG2021/050421
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yang Kwang FOO; Lee Peng GOH
Original assignee: Singapore District Cooling Pte Ltd
Priority date: 2021-07-16
Filing date: 2021-07-16
Publication date: 2023-01-19

Abstract

This invention relates to a district management system for a district. The district management system comprising: a central utility plant (CUP) comprising a thermal energy storage (TES), a chiller plant, an electricity supply system, and a control system; and a utility infrastructure adapted to interconnect the CUP to facilities within the district.

Description

A District Management System

Field of the Invention

This invention relates to a district management system and method. Specifically, this invention relates to a district management system and method that controls and shares building services through interconnection and extension of the building management system to facilitate the management of the street furniture and public facilities within the public area in a district.

Prior Art There are limitations to current Building Services and Facility Management system as such system is difficult to extend services to outside the immediate building boundaries and beyond. For example, individual building system is a silo. Individual building installs its own building services i.e. cooling system, electrical system, firefighting system with a lot of redundancy and resulting in poor asset utilization as some of the assets are rarely used and the standby assets may never be used. Further, each building needs to maintain its own Facility Management team. Under Singapore tight labour market condition, this may not be sustainable. Currently, individual building either does not capture or utilize the data obtained from building operation due to the lack of scale and/or expertise. Further, public area outside each building is underutilized due to lack of readily available infrastructure to provide utilities to support outdoor events and lack of effective management tool to ease the burden to encourage the use of public area.

Therefore, those skilled in the art are striving to provide an improved method of sharing resources within a district or wider community. Summary of the Invention

The above and other problems are solved and an advance in the art is made by a system and method in accordance with this invention. A first advantage of the system and method in accordance with this invention is that the system and method is able to improve asset utilisation efficiency and energy efficiency. A second advantage of the system and method in accordance with this invention is that the system and method is to save gross floor area (GFA) for the district and to better utilise the public area within the district. A third advantage of the system and method in accordance with this invention is that the system and method is to alleviate the manpower constraint in Facility Management and Construction industries. A fourth advantage of the system and method in accordance with this invention is that the system and method is to save construction and operation and maintenance cost. A fifth advantage of the system and method in accordance with this invention is that the system and method is to improve reliability for provision of building services to buildings within a district. A sixth advantage of the system and method in accordance with this invention is that the system and method is to aggregate energy demand and usage to better optimise the upstream supply and downstream demand. A seventh advantage of the system and method in accordance with this invention is that the system and method is to improve the utilization of the public area i.e. outdoor cooling, closed-circuit television (CCTV), temporary power supply (which can be from a renewable source), temporary water supply.

A first aspect of the disclosure describes a district management system for a district. The district management system comprises a central utility plant (CUP) comprising a thermal energy storage (TES), a chiller plant, an electricity supply system, and a control system; and a utility infrastructure adapted to interconnect the CUP to facilities within the district.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the utility infrastructure comprises a first fluid pipe adapted to allow fluid communication between the TES and a firefighting system of the facilities. In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the utility infrastructure comprises a second fluid pipe adapted to allow fluid communication between the chiller plant and a cooling system of the facilities.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the utility infrastructure comprises an electric cable adapted to supply electricity from electricity supply system to the facilities.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the utility infrastructure further comprises a communication line adapted to communicatively connect the control system to facilities within the district to determine a demand for resources from the facilities to adjust a supply from the TES, chiller plant and electricity supply system to the facilities.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the electricity supply system is one of an energy storage system and a genset.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the first fluid pipe acts as a fire water pipe supplying chilled water from the TES directly to the firefighting system of the facilities.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the chiller plant supplies chilled water directly to the cooling system of the facilities.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the chiller plant supplies chilled water to the TES. In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the TES is in fluid communication with the chiller plant and adapted to allow the chiller plant to operate at a constant rate.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the control system is communicatively connected to the TES, chiller plant and electricity supply system. In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the control system comprises a processor, memory and instructions stored on the memory and executable by the processor to: control the chiller plant to operate at a certain rate of chilled water production. In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the instructions further comprises instruction to: in response to receiving a fire alert from a firefighting system of one of the facilities, direct chilled water from the TES to the firefighting system.

In an embodiment of the first aspect of the disclosure, the instructions further comprises instruction to: in response to receiving a backup electricity request from a switchboard of one of the facilities, instruct the electricity supply system to export electricity to the switchboard.

Brief Description of the Drawings The above and other features and advantages in accordance with this invention are described in the following detailed description and are shown in the following drawings:

Figure 1 illustrating resources in existing facilities; and

Figure 2 illustrating an overall architecture of a district management system in accordance with an embodiment of this invention.

Detailed Description

It is envisage that a system and method be provided to share Building Services through interconnection and extension of the Building Management System to form a new “District Management System” to facilitate the management of the street furniture and public facilities within the public area in a district. Interconnection of the Building Services is an extension of the district cooling/heating system. The inventive concept is to house the building services into one or multiple central utilities plants (CUP). The following building services can be included in the CUP and from there the related utilities or services can be distributed to the building and public area through network of pipes, power cable and fibre optic cable.

Figure 1 illustrates the resources required for a commercial building 110, public area 120 and residential building 130.

The commercial building 110 includes a fire fighting (FF) system 111, an air side system 112, a switchboard 113, a fire tank 114, chiller system 115 and a genset 116. The commercial building 110 may also include a user interface 117, electric vehicle charging system 118 and photovoltaic (PV) system 119, where the user interface 117 is adapted for users to use the electric vehicle charging system 118.

The public area 120 includes a temporary cooler system 122, a portable switchboard 123, temporary chiller system 125 and a portable genset 126. Similar to the commercial building 110, the public area 120 may also include a user interface 127, electric vehicle charging system 128 and photovoltaic (PV) system 129, where the user interface 127 is adapted for users to use the electric vehicle charging system 128 among other usages. Generally, the public area 120 typically has temporary asset such as temporary cooler system 122, a portable switchboard 123, temporary chiller system 125 and a portable genset 126. Some of the permanent fixtures include electric vehicle charging system 128 and photovoltaic (PV) system 129. The residential building includes a fire fighting (FF) system 131 , a direct expansion

(DX) fan coil unit cooling system 132, a switchboard 133, a fire tank 134, a DX air conditioning outdoor unit 135 and a genset 136. The residential building 130 may also include a user interface 137, electric vehicle charging system 138 and photovoltaic (PV) system 139, where the user interface 137 is adapted for users to use the electric vehicle charging system 138 among others.

As shown in figure 1 , similar resources such as fire tanks 114 and 134 are required in commercial building 110 and residential building 130. Further, similar cooling system such as chiller 115, temporary chiller system 125 and DX air conditioning system 135 are required in commercial building 110, public area 120 and residential building 130. Still further, gensets 116, 126 and 136 are required in commercial building 110, public area 120 (which are temporary) and residential building 130. While similar resources are required in these buildings and public spaces, such resources consume spaces and may not be required to be operating at all time such as fire tank 114 and 134 and gensets 116, 126 and 136. In addition, genset with diesel tank is not very environmentally friendly as it needs to be tested few times a year with the minimum running hour. Furthermore, the diesel tank also presents a significant fire risk to the building. Hence, a district management system with a central utility plant (CUP) to allow sharing of such resources is provided in accordance with an embodiment of this invention. Specifically, the district management system consolidates all backup power requirement and redistributes the backup power through a distribution cable within the district. The purpose is to centralize all the backup power system and achieve the economics of scale to eliminate the genset and diesel tank completely from the district and replace it with a cleaner energy storage system (ESS) such as Lithium-Ion battery. As the Lithium-Ion battery is far more expensive than genset operated using Diesel, it is very unlikely for a building to install its battery system to replace the genset operated with a diesel tank.

With ESS system integrated into the electrical distribution system within the district, the excess renewable power generation from the facilities in the district such as commercial buildings, public spaces and residential buildings can be stored in the ESS and discharged for use such as EV charging station when required. This will never be possible with the genset system. The district management system would allow construction of a sustainable district. Figure 2 illustrates a district management system 200 adapted to control shared resources to facilities within a district. For purposes of this disclosure, the facilities refers to buildings such as commercial building 110 and residential building 130, and public spaces such as public area 120. The district management system 200 comprises a CUP 210, an App 230, a communication line 250, a first fluid pipe 260, a second fluid pipe 270 and an electric cable 280.

The CUP 210 comprises a thermal energy storage (TES) 214, a chiller plant 215, electricity supply 216, and a control system 220.

The TES 214 is in fluid communication with the FF system 111 and FF system 131 via the first fluid pipe 260. The TES primary function is to help to regulate the chilled water production system so that the chillers plant 215 can operate at or close to the design optimal point. For example, the chiller plant 215 may operate a constant rate and any excess not supplied to the facilities may be channelled to the TES. If there is an increase in demand from the facilities (probably during peak hours), chilled water from the TES can be used to complement the chilled water from the chiller plant. In short, the chilled water stored in the TES acts as a buffer for the chiller plant to cater to sudden increase in demand from the facilities. As a large amount of chilled water is stored in the TES, the chilled water can also be channelled to useful secondary function which is to provide backup water for the firefighting system. The first fluid pipe 260 acts as a fire water pipe supplying chilled water from the TES 214 directly to the firefighting system 111 and 131 and fire hydrants in public area. Essentially, the water stored in the Chilled Water Thermal Storage Tank in the CUP 210 can serve a useful secondary function as back up to the primary fire water storage system to serve a particular building in the event of fire. This eliminates allocating space for firefighting water tank 114 and 134. The TES 214 in the CUP 210 can stock thermal energy by cooling a storage medium (water), so that the stored energy can be used later to serve its primary function for cooling applications. The TES 214 can help balance energy demand and supply to increase the overall chiller system’s efficiency. In short, the water stored in the TES can be used as an emergency back-up fire-fighting water source. Thus, it provides dual usage to better utilise the TES asset as the chilled water stored in the TES can be repurposed for firefighting when required. In one embodiment, if a fire is detected in one of the connected buildings or public area, the cooling supply will not be a priority anymore. This means that it would no longer be a priority for the chiller system 215 to supply cool fluid to the air side 112, cooler 112 and FCU 132. Hence, the chilled water stored in the TES can be piped to the firefighting systems of the relevant buildings or public area are connected within one district where fire is detected. In short, if fire is detected in one of the connected buildings and public areas, the chilled water in the TES 214 can be piped to the in-area or in-building firefighting system directly. Comparing to the ambient temperature water, cold water stored in TES has the added advantage to reduce heat and extinguish the fire more effectively. Additionally, a centralized TES system can substitute the in-area and in-building fire tanks to save space and also to reduce the costs spent on regular tests. Previously, as the firefighting systems are located in the buildings/areas independently and separately, they have to be tested independently. Hence, with a centralised CUP 210, multiple and independent tests of each firefighting system in each building/area can be easily replaced by only one test of the centralized TES and its fire water pipe.

The chiller plant 215 is a centralized chiller system. This is a district cooling system. The in-building chilled water production system can be centralised into the CUP 210. All of the buildings in the district, including residential buildings, will be water-cooled instead of air-cooled, which means that instead of having an air cooled DX air-conditioner for each unit in a residential building, a centralized water cooled system will provide more efficient air-con to each residential unit. This means that the chiller plant 215 is in fluid communication with the cooling system 112, 122 and 132 via the second fluid pipe 270. The second fluid pipe 270 acts as a chilled water pipe supplying chilled water from the chiller plant 215 directly to the cooling system 112, 122 and 132. For the DX fan coil unit cooling system 132 and DX air conditioning outdoor unit 135, both would need to be replaced by chilled water type FCU. The chilled water in the TES is supplied from the chiller 215. The TES basically is a storage tank for storing chilled water from the chiller 215 and can be diverted back to the chiller 215 when there is a higher demand from the facilities.

Currently, all of the commercial buildings in Singapore have either in-building electricity supply system, such as batteries or Gensets, installed as backup power to supply power in emergencies where the regular power supply is cut off, such as when a fire starts. But installing and maintaining a functional in-building electricity supply system such as genset is very expensive. Furthermore, battery storages are even more expensive than Gensets. Hence, it would be beneficial for a centralised electricity supply system 216 in the CUP 210. The centralized electricity supply system 216 has bigger capacity than those in- building ones, and is electrically connected to the in-building/area emergency switchboards to make the multiple in-building batteries or Gensets redundant. This means that the costs on the installation, maintenance, and test of multiple in-building batteries or Gensets separately can be eliminated.

For example, if there are thirty buildings in the district, and if each in-building batteries or Gensets needs to be tested seasonally, within one year, 120 times of testing will need to be conducted. However, if thirty in-building batteries or Gensets are replaced by a centralized electricity supply system in CUP 210, only four times of testing need to be done per year. Therefore, it would be advantageous to implement a centralized electricity supply system 216 instead of multiple and independent ones such as the gensets 116, 126 and 136 to have a green, cost-saving, and efficient backup power supply. The power generated by the electricity supply system 216 can also be used for EV charging 118. For purposes of this disclosure, the centralized electricity supply system 216 may either be an energy storage system, Genset or both energy storage system and Genset. The centralized electricity supply system 216 is connected to the switchboards 113, 123 and 133 via electric cable 280.

The control system 220 controls the TES 214, chiller plant 215 and genset 216 as well as the distributed cooling interfacing asset in each connected building which forms the district cooling system. The distributed cooling interfacing asset refers to hose connectors, electrical connectors and communication connectors. The hose connectors are to allow facilities such as buildings or public spaces to receive the chilled water from the chiller plant 215 and TES 214 via the first and second fluid pipe 260 and 270. The electrical connectors are to allow facilities such as buildings or public spaces to receive backup power supply from the genset 216 via the electric cable 280. The communication connectors are provided to allow the facilities to communicate with the control 220 via the communication line 250. The TES 214 and chiller plant 215 forms the core asset of the CUP which also include genset 216 to ensure reliability of supply and provide back up for fire emergency supply to one of the connected buildings in case of fire. The control system 220 is communicatively connected to the commercial building 110, public area 120 and residential building 130 via communication line 250 to determine the demand for resources from the commercial building 110, public area 120 and residential building 130 in order to adjust the supply out from the TES 214, chiller plant 215 and genset 216 and other interconnected assets in the district. The control system 220 is also communicatively connected to the TES 214, chiller 215, battery or genset 216 to operate these systems. For example, the control system 220 is communicatively connected to the chiller 215 to control the chiller 215 to operate at a certain rate of chilled water production. The control system 220 is also communicatively connected to the TES 214 so that when control system 220 receives a fire alert from one of the firefighting system, the control system 220 will direct chilled water from the TES to the relevant firefighting system. The control system 220 is also communicatively connected to the battery or genset 216 to export electricity to the electric cable 280 if the control system 220 receives a backup electricity request from from a switchboard of one of the facilities. The control system 220 is computing system such as server, desktop, laptop or similar devices. A typical computing system comprises a processor, memory and instructions stored on the memory and executable by the processor. The processor may be a processor, microprocessor, microcontroller, application specific integrated circuit, digital signal processor (DSP), programmable logic circuit, or other data processing device that executes instructions to perform the processes in accordance with the present invention. The processor has the capability to execute various applications that are stored in the memory. The memory may include read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash cards, or any storage medium. Instructions are computing codes, software applications that are stored on the memory and executable by the processor to perform the processes in accordance with this invention. Such computing system is well known in the art and hence only briefly described herein.

The control system 220 is also communicatively connected to the App 230 and database 231. The App 230 is a software application executable by a typical computing system as described above. The database 231 is a storage medium for storing data. The App 230 can be used to close the loop of controlling and optimizing the chiller plant 215. By having a centralized chiller plant 215, all of the buildings in the district, including residential buildings, will be water-cooled instead of air-cooled, which means that instead of having an air compressor for each unit in a building, a centralized system will control the air-con in each unit. Therefore, having a channel to collect feedback on the comfort level of using the air-con from end-users is important. Hence, users can feedback via the user interface 117 which is communicative connected to the App 230 via network 150. For example, when the end-user files a feedback to the App 230, the control system 220 which is also communicatively connected to the App 230 via the network 150 can locate the precise unit or room in order to optimize the cooling supply to the relevant unit or room, which can help achieve the energy efficiency of the chiller system.

Due to Singapore’s tropical climate, activities in Singapore are mainly confined within a closed up areas rather than in open spaces and hence, air-conditioning system, electricity and water supply are needed for holding activities in public area 120. Hence, by supplying the communication line 250, the second fluid pipe 270 and the electric cable 280 in public area 120, electricity and chilled water can be supplied to the activities in closed up area held in public area 120. One skilled in the art will recognise that activities are not necessarily limited in the covered areas, and certain public areas can also be fully utilized without departing from the invention.

The control system 220 may include an additional layer of control network for control and metering purpose. An additional layer of IT system can be built on top of this control network to allow the management of the district as well as providing the necessary data analytics and intelligence to optimise the entire district operation. A new function for the district can implemented such as a Facility Manager for the entire district to include each building and the public area surrounding each building in the district. With a District Management system and data analytics, the CUP 210 can double as “Town Council”

Operator to assume the estate management role in non-residential district such as central business district (CBD).

The control system 220 may include Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) strategically installed in any location within the district to provide a centralised round-the-clock security monitoring. Hence, in-house CCTV system can be eliminated.

With a centralised CUP 210, the control system 220 can also consolidate information on the waste within the district. This provides an opportunity to have waste to energy operation and the resultant by-product of the waste handling process can be put to more productive use in the CUP 210. The district management system 200 in accordance with this invention saves costs as it avoids duplication of the spare and underutilized asset in individual buildings. Centralization of the asset will allow optimized operation where resources in the same district can be operated at the most efficient level.

The district management system and method in accordance with this invention can be used in any district development to improve the building services and FM industrial.

Importantly, the district management system 200 comprises a utility infrastructure to interconnect the various resources of facilities within a district to allow for sharing of assets. This utility infrastructure comprises a communication line 250, a first fluid pipe 260, a second fluid pipe 270 and an electric cable 280. The utility infrastructure may be built underground or above ground and new buildings within the district can easily tap on the communication line 250, first fluid pipe 260, second fluid pipe 270 and electric cable 280 by extending the communication line 250, first fluid pipe 260, second fluid pipe 270 and electric cable 280 to the adjacent new building. While figure 2 shows that each of the communication line 250, first fluid pipe 260, second fluid pipe 270 and electric cable 280 as a single line, one skilled in the art will recognised that the single line is just a conceptual representation. For example, the communication line 250 can looped back to the control 220 to provide reliability. The first and second fluid pipes 260 and 270 must be looped back as each of the first and second fluid pipes 260 and 270 consists of supply and return pipes. Further, the electric cable 280 consists of many lines including power line, earthing cable etc.

For existing buildings with fire tank 114, chiller 115 and genset 116, if these resources are not removed from the existing buildings, these resources can be shared with new buildings via the network infrastructure. Flence, there is no need for the new buildings to allocate space for the fire tank, chiller and genset. In this embodiment, the fire tank 114, chiller 115 and genset 116 in existing buildings are connected to the respective utility infrastructure so that these resources can be shared to other buildings within the same district. For example, the fire tank 114 is connected to the return pipe of the first fluid pipe so that water from the fire tank 114 or 134 can be channelled back to the TES. The chiller 115 is connected to the return pipe of the second fluid pipe so that chilled water from the chiller 115 can be channelled back to the chiller 215. The genset 116 is connected to the electric cable 280 to charge the ESS 216. With a utility infrastructure to interconnect the various resources of facilities within a district to the central utilities plant 210, the district management system 200 is able to provide chilled water from the chiller 215 to the cooling system of the facilities, chilled water from the TES 214 for the firefighting system of the facilities; backup electricity supply from the electricity supply system 216 to the switchboard of the facilities. The demand requests from the facilities can easily be communicated to the control system 220 which will in turn manage the required supply to the demand accordingly. Furthermore, end consumers in the facilities may provide feedbacks via the user interface 117, 127 and 137. These feedbacks will be transmitted to the control system 220 via the application 230 on network 150. In short, feedbacks from end consumer would complement the demand requests from the facilities.

For existing buildings with fire tank 114, chiller 115 and genset 116, these additional resources would be managed by the CUP 210 before they are being phase out.

While the above description only discloses one CUP 210, one skilled in the art will recognise that it is possible for multiple CUPs, with each managing a separate district, may be communicatively connected to each other so that adjacent districts are able to share resources. The above is a description of exemplary embodiments of a system and method in accordance with this disclosure. It is foreseeable that those skilled in the art can and will design alternative system and method based on this disclosure.

Claims

1. A district management system for a district, comprising: a central utility plant (CUP) comprising a thermal energy storage (TES), a chiller plant, an electricity supply system, and a control system; and a utility infrastructure adapted to interconnect the CUP to facilities within the district.

2. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the utility infrastructure comprises a first fluid pipe adapted to allow fluid communication between the

TES and a firefighting system of the facilities.

3. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the utility infrastructure comprises a second fluid pipe adapted to allow fluid communication between the chiller plant and a cooling system of the facilities.

4. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the utility infrastructure comprises an electric cable adapted to supply electricity from electricity supply system to the facilities

5. The district management system according to claims 2-4 wherein the utility infrastructure further comprises a communication line adapted to communicatively connect the control system to facilities within the district to determine a demand for resources from the facilities to adjust a supply from the TES, chiller plant and electricity supply system to the facilities.

6. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the electricity supply system is one of an energy storage system and a genset.

7. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the first fluid pipe acts as a fire water pipe supplying chilled water from the TES directly to the firefighting system of the facilities.

8. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the chiller plant supplies chilled water directly to the cooling system of the facilities.

9. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the chiller plant supplies chilled water to the TES.

10. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the TES is in fluid communication with the chiller plant and adapted to allow the chiller plant to operate at a constant rate.

11. The district management system according to claim 1 wherein the control system is communicatively connected to the TES, chiller plant and electricity supply system.

12. The district management system according to claim 11 wherein the control system comprises a processor, memory and instructions stored on the memory and executable by the processor to: control the chiller plant to operate at a certain rate of chilled water production.

13. The district management system according to claim 12 wherein the instructions further comprises instruction to: in response to receiving a fire alert from a firefighting system of one of the facilities, direct chilled water from the TES to the firefighting system.

14. The district management system according to claim 13 wherein the instructions further comprises instruction to: in response to receiving a backup electricity request from a switchboard of one of the facilities, instruct the electricity supply system to export electricity to the switchboard.