RIYADH — Siemens has conducted two seminars in partnership with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) at RAL on the topic of mechanical Pressure Independent Control Valves (PICVs). Discussing the market experiences and energy-saving considerations of PICVs, the first two in the series of seminars have been held in Saudi Arabia and the next will be in Cairo, Egypt on April 15. ASHRAE is always supporting knowledge dissemination and especially in Region At Large where we have the biggest ASHRAE region all over the world with a highly diversified expertise and talented members who are always eager to learn more and more, with support from Siemens we succeeded to organize such great seminars.

PICV’s have the potential to make a significant contribution to energy efficiency in buildings, and offer cost benefits by preventing oversupply of chilled water to heat-exchangers/terminal units and ensuring optimum usage of cooling generation.

“We are seeing greater support for hydronic balancing within the engineering community, but much still needs to be understood about the technology, which requires the integration of digital applications with mechanical hardware,” said Heiri Walker, Head of CPS at Siemens Middle East. “With these seminars we’re aiming to address concrete guidelines for assessing expected performance of PICVs and their benefits to the system.”

Pressure-independent valves combine a control valve for temperature, a differential pressure controller for shielding against pressure fluctuations in the hydraulic network, and a pre-setting scale for setting the maximum required volumetric flow, to control accuracy of systems under all operating conditions. With increased precision over control of the volumetric flow, the valves contribute to better environmental comfort in buildings. — SG