(

BSB Circular No. 24 of 2015

Guidelines for
Reliability and Resilience Considerations
in Air-Conditioning System Design

The Air-conditioning Specialist Support Group has prepared a set of guidelines for
reliability and resilience considerations in air-conditioning system design. Project officers are
recommended to make reference to this guideline in planning and design of central air-
conditioning system in their new government building projects.

2. The content of this guideline will be incorporated into the "Design Guide for Air-
conditioning, Refrigeration and Ventilation Installation" in coming revision. The guideline has
been uploaded to BSB Intranet, and a hard copy of it is also kept in the BSB Library for
reference.

( MAK Ka-chun )
Controller
Air-conditioning Specialist Support Group

Enc!.

Build ing Serv ices Branch, ArchSD Page 1 of I File code:ci r24I 5.doc
BSB Circu lar No. 24 of 20 15
Date of Issue : 10 December 20 15
 Guidelines for
Reliability and Resilience Considerations
in Air-conditioning System Design

1. General

Reliability of an engineering system is its ability to perform the intended function for a
specified interval under steady and stable conditions while resilience is the power or
ability of a system to maintain its intended function in the event of a pre-defined
component failure or electricity interruption. Air-conditioning (A/C) system should be
designed with due consideration on its operation reliability and resilience, and its
standby and redundant capacity if and where necessary, in meeting the clients
requirements and the need to minimize nuisance to building users and disruption to
normal operation of buildings. This is particularly important for buildings/areas where
essential services or functions are involved. Complete shut down of A/C system due to
routine maintenance, emergency repair or planned overhaul of system components
and/or equipment shall be avoided and, if it really happens, the downtime should be
minimized as far as reasonably practicable. The following design principles on A/C
system shall be carefully considered in new government building projects with a view to
achieving an engineering services installation which is fit-for-purpose, cost effective,
reliable in operation and with no over-redundancies in design.

1.1. Resilient design considerations shall be applied for the entire A/C system to cater
for routine maintenance and overhaul of major equipment such as cooling towers,
chillers, chilled and condensing water pumps, air handling units, main distribution
pipes from headers to pipe risers, condensing water supplies and electricity
supply system. The exact level of resilience that are required in an A/C system
shall be considered on project by project basis with due consideration to the
project nature and the operational needs of the building users. In general,

a) use of a single refrigerating machine in dedicated refrigerant or chilled

water circuit application should be avoided as far as reasonably practicable

Building Services Branch, ArchSD Page 1 of 7 Filecode: Encl to cir2415 R01.doc

Encl to Cir2415
Date of Issue : 10 December 2015
 in view that any breakdown of such machine may affect a considerable
extent of service to the users.

b) use of a single motor control cubicle for all refrigerating machines should
be avoided as far as reasonably practical in order to minimize the risk of
total shutdown of these machines when the control cubicle is faulty or put
under maintenance.

c) use of a single chilled water riser for a large A/C supply zone should be
avoided.

d) the quantity and capacity of refrigerating machines, usually of identical

size, should be carefully planned by taking into account the need for
routine maintenance or planned overhaul of at least one of these machines
and/or sudden breakdown of any of them in hot seasons.

e) for use of refrigerating machines with different capacities, the system

should be designed to cater for the worst scenario whereby the largest
machine is put out of service due to the need for routine maintenance
and/or sudden breakdown.

1.2. For essential A/C services requiring a high degree of resilience to meet special
building functions and clients operational requirements (e.g. hospitals,
headquarters buildings), all major and essential equipment in the A/C systems
shall be configured in such a way that there is minimum chance of serious
interruption and/or breakdown of the entire plant operation due to a single point
of failure in the system. Sufficient redundancy and/or backup provisions shall be
considered where necessary in the system design.

1.3. For essential A/C services to areas like operating theaters in hospitals and data
centers where essential services supports are required, electricity supply to the
refrigerating machines of the required capacity shall be fed from essential power
source backed up by emergency generator or other alternative means like dual
feed power source from utility companies. Alternative load sharing among

Building Services Branch, ArchSD Page 2 of 7 Filecode: Encl to cir2415 R01.doc

Encl to Cir2415
Date of Issue : 10 December 2015
 multiple transformers having redundant capacities should also be considered just
in case a transformer is out of order.

1.4. For A/C system designed to adopt evaporative fresh water-cooled or once-
through sea water-cooled heat rejection for the main plant, provision of standby
air-cooled refrigerating machine should be considered to cater for the essential
A/C loads in case of prolonged suspension of the condensing water supply. If
such additional air-cooled plant equipment is included, the level of resilience of
normal fresh water cooled chiller and cooling tower design may be suitably
adjusted to ensure that there will not be over-redundancies in the provisions of
plant equipment as the air-cooled plant can serve similar purpose.

1.5. Essential electrical equipment for A/C plant shall be segregated from water
services such as chilled/condensing water pipes and other plumbing/drainage
services to avoid accidental breakdown of the main power supply for A/C system
due to water flooding or water damage arising from pipe bursting or leakage.

2. Resilient Central Chiller Plant Design

2.1. Configuration including number and capacity of chillers in chiller plant shall be
carefully designed for good plant operation efficiency throughout the year
covering both peak load and part load situations. The following factors shall be
considered to justify the selection of suitable plant configuration:

a) the estimated year-round base essential and non-essential cooling load

patterns of the building for optimisation of the overall operational
energy efficiency of the plant throughout the year;

b) the part load demands for night operation, round-the-clock operation,

off-peak seasonal operation, holiday operation and any other special
operation arrangements;

c) the emergency A/C operation requirements due to failure of equipment

or utility supplies;

Building Services Branch, ArchSD Page 3 of 7 Filecode: Encl to cir2415 R01.doc

Encl to Cir2415
Date of Issue : 10 December 2015
 d) adequate capacity margin to cater for system distribution loss, plant
capacity de-rating and possible future general building load growth. In
case there are specific requirements from client department for
additional cooling capacity to suit their operational/building needs (e.g.
expansion areas) in future, relevant details should be included in the
approved Schedule of Accommodation of the project before relevant
A/C system design is taken forward;

e) spatial constraint of plant room area; and

f) cost effectiveness analysis including capital cost, operation and

maintenance cost, etc.

2.2. It is important to liaise with client to identify the essential areas and building
functions to differentiate the essential and non-essential A/C loads such that a
suitable chiller plant configuration can be chosen to optimise the overall plant
operation efficiency.

2.3. For non-essential A/C loads in spaces like general offices, meeting rooms and
ancillary areas, if the base load requirement of an A/C system without any
standby or alternative support arrangements is supported by (N) number of
chillers, the minimum configuration in general should be (N+1) so that a full
level of A/C services support can still be maintained in case any one of the
equipment fails. However, there are wide varieties in the nature of building
A/C loads which are also of different level of importance in that some non-
critical loads may be off during emergency and/or planned maintenance. Hence,
designers should carefully analyse these A/C loads on project basis to
determine whether (N+1) configuration could be substituted by other
chiller/capacity configuration (e.g. 4 chillers each capable of meeting 30%
estimated building A/C loads in lieu of (3 + 1) chillers each with capacity of
33% building load) if such configuration is more cost effective and can still
provide an acceptable level of A/C services to users in case any one chiller fails
or shuts down for planned maintenance. In sum, designers should assess and
select the most suitable configuration to fit for purpose following the basic

Building Services Branch, ArchSD Page 4 of 7 Filecode: Encl to cir2415 R01.doc

Encl to Cir2415
Date of Issue : 10 December 2015
 principles with due consideration on cost effectiveness of the system design
while meeting the clients requirements and their operational needs.

2.4. For building with essential A/C loads in areas with 24 hour A/C like security
control room, server room, store room for important assets etc., provision of a
separate chiller plant or A/C system with sufficient standby equipment backup
by essential power supply should be considered. The design will vary from
project to project depending on the size of essential A/C loads. In some cases,
if the essential A/C load is of significant scale in matching with the main plant
equipment, standby chiller(s) can be included in the main chiller plant with
concerned chillers provided with essential power supply to support the
necessary essential A/C operation. In this case, the configuration should be
N+1 or might even be higher depending on the critical importance of the loads
and actual operational needs of the buildings.

2.5. For very essential assets and building operation (e.g. data centre with Tier IV
standard), it is not uncommon to equip with a (2N) system which will provide a
stable and much improved building operating environment, where system
resilience allows for essential plant and systems to be taken out of service for
short periods and/or essential planned maintenance without interruption to
building operation.

2.6. For systems that are so essential and critical that they must not fail when called
upon to operate, consideration should be given to a design of (2N) plus a spare
for maintenance as well. In any case of (2N) or (2N) plus a spare arrangement
with associated increase in plant area is requested by client, such design
requirement should be specified in Project Definition Statement (PDS) and/or
the Schedule of Accommodations for approval by relevant authorities.

2.7. Consideration might also be given to allow for sufficient space in plant room
and pipe risers for future system expansion, if so required in the individual
projects under the PDS and/or the Schedule of Accommodations.

Building Services Branch, ArchSD Page 5 of 7 Filecode: Encl to cir2415 R01.doc

Encl to Cir2415
Date of Issue : 10 December 2015
 2.8. In order to uphold the standard and level of local support services and to
improve the servicing quality of chillers used in the A/C installations in
government buildings, the chiller suppliers have to provide the Certification
Scheme for Servicing Quality for Chillers (the Scheme) for chillers and heat
pumps used in new government building projects undertaken by ArchSD when
the chiller cooling/heating capacity is greater than 175kW.

2.9. Risk of flooding and water damage shall be carefully assessed especially when
central chiller plant or the associated essential electrical equipment are located
below ground level. The potential risk of water flooding and water damage
may lead to breakdown of the entire chiller plant and subsequent interruption
of A/C supply, bringing about nuisance to the users and their operations. For
those essential areas requiring uninterrupted A/C cooling, alternative source of
A/C cooling shall be considered such that A/C cooling can be maintained.

2.10. Template for chiller plant design promulgated by BSB should be completed for
documentation of the cooling load estimation and the corresponding design
rationales for plant configuration and sizing of chillers installation for new
government building projects with central A/C system.

3. Resilient Cooling Tower Design

3.1. For essential areas requiring uninterrupted A/C cooling, to cope with possible
interruption of water supply from town mains, capacity (in terms of hours of
operation) of make-up tanks for cooling towers shall be designed with
sufficient allowance to maintain adequate water supply to the cooling towers
for the required duration.

3.2. Cooling tower system shall be designed to equip with appropriate isolating
valves and water tee-off points for future water treatment and sampling such
that individual cooling tower can be isolated for periodic cleansing and
disinfection without unduly affecting the normal A/C services to the building.

3.3. As far as practicable, cooling water make-up tank shall be designed and
installed at a level higher than cooling tower such that make-up water for

Building Services Branch, ArchSD Page 6 of 7 Filecode: Encl to cir2415 R01.doc

Encl to Cir2415
Date of Issue : 10 December 2015
 cooling tower can be fed by gravity instead of by booster pumps, thereby
avoiding risk of pump failure leading to interrupted water supply to cooling
tower and hence affecting normal plant operation.

4. Resilient Water Pump and Pipework Design

4.1. The numbers and sizes of primary chilled water pumps, secondary chilled
water pumps, sea water pumps, condenser pumps, hot water pumps and other
essential engineering systems and equipments shall be selected and designed
based on N+1 concept where N shall represent the number of duty pumps in
full load operation.

4.2. For high-rise buildings or buildings with large floor area, water circuits sub-
divided into multiple zones shall be adopted for the purpose of zone control
arrangement with due consideration to the working pressure of the pipe system.

4.3. All equipment in their respective water circuits shall be inter-connected by

common headers to allow for parallel operation. Common headers shall be
preferably sectionalised with isolating valves in order to isolate different
sections of header for avoidance of system shut down due to maintenance or
breakdown as a result of header pipe failure. Valve isolated tee-off branches
shall also be provided for all water circuit headers to allow partial isolation for
maintenance of equipment and future modification of the system.

4.4. For essential services, dual or redundant pipe system shall be considered where
two groups of independent chilled water main pipe-work or provision of a
spare pipe in addition to the normal supply/return pipes shall be interconnected
with motorized sectional control valves for emergency operation in case of any
pipe failure. The changeover of chilled water pipe(s) from one to another shall
be fully automatic, monitored and controlled by CCMS.

Building Services Branch, ArchSD Page 7 of 7 Filecode: Encl to cir2415 R01.doc

Encl to Cir2415
Date of Issue : 10 December 2015