Abstract
Parallel pumps are commonly applied in chilled water and hot water systems to handle a broad range of water flowrates. VFDs complicate pump staging control, requiring decisions between running more pumps at lower speed or fewer pumps at higher speed. Faulty pump branch fittings can further reduce pumping efficiency. The objective of this paper is to develop an approach to optimize staging control and detect faults using flow rate and pump speed. The approach utilizing the correlation between pump power and speed is demonstrated in a secondary chilled water system with four parallel pumps. The demonstration shows the approach's effectiveness.