Birds of a feather flock together: For Efficient Energy GmbH (www.efficient-energy.de), the inventor and manufacturer of the “eChiller”), and Berghof Automation and Control Solutions, the control specialists of the Berghof Group of Companies, their greatest passion is the pursuit of innovation. It is not surprising, then, that the experts at both companies got along immediately.

This is certainly one of the reasons why the design-in phase for this project was exceptionally short, at just a few weeks. “We spent several years tinkering and optimizing until we were able to revolutionize refrigeration technology with the ‘eChiller’ – and, of course, we wanted to go to market as quickly as possible once the device was ready,” explains Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Süß, Managing Director of Efficient Energy GmbH, which was recently awarded the“European Business Award for the Environment 2018-2019” by the European Commission, winning the “Product and Service” category. The “eChiller” is now being successfully produced in series.

Initially, the company had put all its energy into developing the compression refrigeration technology and planned to control the “eChiller” with a simple microcontroller. “But we quickly realized that it would be difficult for us to exploit the full energy-saving potential of our idea in this way,” recalls Dr.-Ing. Süß. An employee of Efficient Energy then provided a crucial piece of information: “He made us recognize the potential of ‘CODESYS’ based programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Together with the specialists from Berghof, we were able to optimally control the entire heat-emitting chain and thus optimize the peripherals in terms of energy,” says Dr.-Ing. Süß, expressing his thanks for the successful cooperation.

The result is impressive: According to Efficient Energy, the energy efficiency of the “eChiller” is four times higher than that of a standard system. And thanks to the smart control concept, it can also be adjusted flexibly and precisely to the customer’s wishes. Because the PLCs from Berghof can be easily adapted to any situation. This considerable flexibility comes from having a sophisticated standard portfolio that consistently uses the conventional and proven “CODESYS”. Customers benefit because Berghof has intensive experience in components, descriptions, user experiences, accessories, software, performance, etc.

As one of the first “CODESYS” users, Berghof also has many years of experience in application development. The current control platform is based on modern processors and offers a broad portfolio of different components. From the compact box controller “B-Fortis CC-Slim” to all-in-one controllers “B-Fortis CC-Prime” with a variety of interfaces and IO to the PLC panel “B-Primis DC-Classic and DC-Prime” as well as the web terminals “B-Primis ET-Classic and ET-Prime”. Berghof controllers are also ideal for CNC applications with SoftMotion thanks to their high performance. The portfolio is supplemented by a safety control system fully integrated in “CODESYS” and solutions for cloud services.

Based on this broad portfolio, Berghof enables customer-specific solutions using proven methods. In all phases of project realization, the company provides support as needed, meaning that even non-experienced project engineers are able to implement requirements in a safe manner. The result is rapid, high-quality project realization with tried and tested components – and therefore safety for plant engineering and end users.

A good example of this is the collaboration with Gardena, the well-known manufacturer of intelligent systems for garden irrigation and maintenance. For one of the company’s factories in Gerstetten near Ulm, where Gardena produces around 1.5 million plastic parts per day for its own use and for numerous well-known customers, those responsible were looking for the most energy-efficient and environmentally friendly solution possible for cooling a plastic extruder machine that the company uses to manufacture hoses for its sprinkler systems.

The particular challenge here is that the temperature must always be within a very narrow temperature range to ensure the optimum quality of the lines. “Not only were we able to score points with the ‘eChiller’ because of the high savings in energy and the argument of ‘water instead of chemicals’, but also because of the high precision of the PLC,” says Dr. Süß. A pleasant side effect: Efficient Energy can easily access the PLC remotely to perform diagnostics on the system or software upgrades for Gardena.

The “eChiller” has already been in action at Gardena for about a year – and has proven extremely valuable in daily round-the-clock use. It’s no wonder that Gardena is likely to rely on the “eChiller” whenever possible in the future when it comes to air conditioning.