Commercial VFD Pool Pumps Phase 1

This study assesses the energy savings benefits of installing pool pumps equipped with Variable Speed Drives (VSD) for commercial customers. To do this, market information was gathered from several sites across the Hotel/Motel, Education, and Assemblies market sectors to develop an estimate of operating characteristics that can be generalized across these market segments. In addition, five hotel/motel sites were selected to receive new VSD-equipped pool pumps for a metering study to measure the actual energy savings from a device to support and further validate energy savings estimates for potential inclusion into SCE incentive programs. Pool pumps equipped with VSDs allow the owner to control the speed of the pump motor in order to save energy. Rather than run the pool pump at full motor speed for 24 hours each day, which is the way most single-speed pumps are operated, a VSD pump can operate at the minimum speed required to meet local health code requirements, saving energy in the long term. Additionally, pumps come in various sizes and increments, and may be oversized in order to ensure the pool’s turnover rate meets local health code requirements. VSD pumps afford the opportunity to “right-size” the pump for the given pool characteristics. This results in potential on-peak demand reduction. While three of the five field sites benefitted from energy savings by installing VSD-equipped pool pumps, it is clear from the comparison to the calculated energy savings that customer interference with the VSD controls during the metering phase did not allow for a true measurement of the savings potentials. This suggests a need to educate the customer to help them understand how to use the speed settings to achieve energy savings. The wide variability in results suggests this measure is not ready for deemed incentives for the commercial sector.