Armstrong Fluid Technology pumps and controls for chilled water systems have been installed in Masdar City, the sustainable city under construction in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Masdar City is being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company with additional funding from the Abu Dhabi government. Designed by British architects Foster and Partners, it is an ambitious planned city which will rely entirely on renewable energy with a sustainable, zero-carbon, zero-waste ecology. The aim is to create a hub for cleantech companies. It will host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and its first tenant is the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.

During the first construction phase – 1A MIST main building, pumps from another manufacturer proved unable to meet the demands of the project, Armstrong Fluid Technology stepped in with the supply of two 160 kW Armstrong IVS 4300 Series pumps. These were the largest pumps with integrated variable speed control ever to be built at the company’s factory in Manchester.

Following on from this, Armstrong Fluid Technology was chosen to supply a much wider range of equipment from its range for the second construction phase – 1B MIST main building. To date this has included Armstrong’s IPC 11550 integrated control system for chilled water, integrated with Armstrong 8000 Series pre-designed and packaged pump solutions.

First construction phase

The 16 0kW IVS 4300 Series pumps supplied by Armstrong Fluid Technology for the first construction phase at Masdar City feature integrated inverters, attached to the bodies of the pumps themselves. This means that the pumps can calculate their own speed requirements, based on the load placed upon them at any one time, to ensure that only the required energy for the current base-load is used.

This enables energy efficient variable speed pumping to be achieved more quickly and easily at lower cost and with reduced complexity of system design. Maintenance is also faster (even on the largest pump models) with a 50% reduction in seal costs, and energy consumption is reduced by over 20% compared to maintaining a constant pressure across the pump.

Second construction phase

For the second phase Armstrong Fluid Technology supplied both packaged pump solutions and integrated control technology for sustainable cooling. At the heart of the project is Armstrong’s IPC 11550 integrated chilled water plant control system. Aimed at achieving better than 0.45 kW/ton (7.8 COP) operating efficiency on an annual average basis, it exceeds today's best-in-class levels of 0.75 kW/ton (4.7 COP), for water-cooled systems. With air-cooled all variable speed systems, annual average plant efficiency levels better than 0.95 kW/ton (3.7 COP) can be achieved. This is made possible via advanced control methodology which maximises the benefits of all variable speed plant design.

The Armstrong IPC 11550 controller integrates with Armstrong 8000 Series pre-designed and packaged pump solutions. Pumps, pipework, controls and motive power are fully-integrated and the packages are manufactured off-site.

In addition, as the pump package is fully assembled and tested before it leaves Armstrong’s factory, many potential project risks are eliminated. Poor system integration during installation is avoided, and the pump solution can be manufactured concurrently with other parts of the construction or refurbishment project to reduce the schedule significantly, at the same time as avoiding delays or bottle-necks that might occur on-site.

Andy North, Armstrong Export Manager, commented, “This is an extremely important project for Armstrong. The imperatives which have driven development of Armstrong products in recent years are completely in tune with the requirements of this project and it is extremely gratifying to see the equipment reaching its true potential in such a ground-breaking and technically significant project.”