Energy-saving opportunity for CERN cooling and ventilation motors identified

In a joint research project, ABB and CERN developed a roadmap for reducing the energy consumption of CERN’s cooling and ventilation system via data-driven energy efficiency audits. These systems are responsible for the cooling and ventilation of CERN's accelerator complex, experimental areas and data centres. The roadmap identified a savings potential of 17.4 % across a total of 800 motors.

Energy efficiency audits involve evaluating the performance and efficiency of motors based on their operating data and help large facilities like CERN to identify the most significant energy-saving opportunities. CERN and ABB experts assessed a wide variety of data from motors in various cooling and ventilation applications. They combined data from multiple sources and analysed the efficiency of the whole system in order to pinpoint the motors that present the best business case for energy efficiency upgrades.

Giovanni Anelli, Head of CERN's Knowledge Transfer group said, “The collaboration with ABB was set up with the aim of optimising the Laboratory’s cooling and ventilation infrastructure to reduce its energy consumption, and is in line with CERN’s commitment to minimise its environmental footprint as well as to share the findings publicly for the benefit of society. It’s an excellent example of collaboration where each side brings its own contribution to the table. CERN brings its large-scale infrastructure and ABB contributes with its technology and service expertise. We are very happy with the final result of this research project as we have exceeded our goal of identifying a 10-15% energy efficiency improvement.”

We are proud to cooperate with CERN and to support its goal to conduct physics research with a low-carbon footprint by helping it to improve the energy efficiency of its cooling and ventilation systems.

– Erich Labuda, President of the Motion Services division at ABB

CERN’s next step will be to selectively upgrade motors with the highest energy-saving potential based on the data collected during the audit.