Sha Tin Racecourse (STRC) Grandstand has a total internal floor area of 200,000 square metres and a capacity of 85,000 that is equipped with betting halls, restaurants, recreational amenities, etc. to provide members and public with a world-class hospitality and sporting entertainment experience. STRC has been operating since 1978. It has a comprehensive strategic plan to identify business orientation and asset life upkeep cycle as to upgrade venues and infrastructures with more sustainable and energy efficient operations.
With an aim of adding air conditioning provisions to meet extended business needs and replacing aged air-cooled chillers, STRC Grandstand underwent four phases of air conditioning infrastructure upgrades between year 2009 and 2014. A centralized chiller plant has then been formulated by 8 nos. water-cooled chillers having a total 8,000RT cooling capacity.
After these upgrades, retro-commissioning project was implemented. Continuous Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx) software was installed in 2016 that tailor-made 86 operational rules were established for identifying any abnormalities of operational data collected from Building Management System (BMS). Low delta temperature phenomenon in both secondary chilled and condensing water systems as well as overpumping phenomenon in primary chilled water system were also found. Consequently, energy saving opportunities (ESOs) were identified: 1) Secondary Chilled Water Pump Speed Optimization; 2) Primary Chilled Water Pump Speed Optimization; 3) Condensing Water Pump Speed Optimization; 4) Cooling Tower Fan Speed & Staging Optimization; 5) Chiller Water Temperature Set-Point Reset Logic Optimization and 6) Chiller Staging Logic Optimization.
After ESOs implementation, the average annual saving for 2021 was 844,913 kWh compared with baseline year (2015). The energy savings in 2021 might be related to COVID-19 pandemic impact due to the change of racecourse operation modes. However, the key performance indicator of this project was chiller plant performance which had a significant 14.4% improvement from 1.097kW/ton (2015) to 0.939kW/ton (2021).