Part-Load Efficiency & Control

Cooling plant is bought for the hottest afternoon of the decade and then spends its entire life somewhere else. A chiller sized for a heatwave peak runs at 30 to 70% load for almost every hour it ever operates, so the efficiency that matters is not the nameplate figure at full load but how gracefully the machine handles everything below it. Part-load behaviour separates well-designed cooling plant from expensive cooling plant more than any other single property.