Project Background
Canadian Solar is a leading global manufacturer of photovoltaic modules and large-scale energy storage systems. Its Thailand facility is a key production base in Southeast Asia and a major local solar manufacturing site. Growing production loads have placed new demands on the chilled-water plant’s cooling capacity, operating efficiency, and safety.
Key Challenges Before the Upgrade
Chillers operated at sustained high loads, leaving limited cooling capacity and creating a risk of high-temperature alarms.
Equipment relied primarily on manual control, limiting real-time adjustment to changing end-use demand and coordinated optimization across systems.
Existing controls focused on alarms after faults occurred, with limited preventive diagnostics and fault protection.
Cooling Plant Expansion and Energy Optimization
The project adds an efficient medium-temperature cooling-water system and cooling towers to serve process cooling and compressed air systems, improving chiller efficiency and supporting production safety.
Using physics-based modeling and AI, Deepctrls develops high-precision models and predictive simulations of chillers, pumps, cooling towers, and end-use loads. While meeting demand, the system continuously identifies operating combinations that consume less energy and issues control parameters to enable closed-loop control and system-wide optimization.
Safety Diagnostics and Operational Protection
The system performs balance checks on flow, temperature, pressure, and thermal energy data to detect anomalies such as inefficient equipment, sudden changes in energy consumption, and persistent losses. It also provides chiller protection, pump water hammer prevention, minimum differential pressure protection, fault alarms, access control, and remote monitoring.
Projected Results
Following the upgrade, Canadian Solar’s Thailand facility is expected to achieve annual energy savings of more than 25%. Alongside improving cooling plant efficiency, the project helps reduce risks associated with high-load operation and supports greener, lower-carbon solar manufacturing.
