Plant Utilities worked example
Process Cooling Capacity at 99% system uptime: a worked example
Push system uptime up to 99% and the picture changes. This example computes every intermediate figure at that operating point. Use it when reviewing process cooling capacity for a utility budget, maintenance priority, capacity check, energy project, or production support plan.
The inputs for this scenario
- Cooling capacity per circuit: 45 tons / circuit (unchanged)
- Available cooling circuits: 6 circuits (unchanged)
- System uptime: 99 % (raised for this scenario; the documented default is 92)
- Heat exchanger effectiveness: 88 % (unchanged)
Working through the calculation
- Applying the documented formula (Gross cooling capacity = cooling capacity per circuit × available cooling circuits) to the inputs above produces each figure below.
- At this operating point the engine returns 235 tons for good output capacity, the number this scenario is built around.
- At this operating point the engine returns 270 tons for gross process cooling capacity.
- At this operating point the engine returns 2.7 tons for capacity lost to downtime.
- At this operating point the engine returns 32.08 tons for capacity lost to exchanger effectiveness.
How this compares with the baseline
- Against the tool's baseline example, where system uptime sits at 92% and the headline result is 219 tons, this scenario comes in 7.61% above the baseline at 235 tons.
- It computes gross cooling capacity from per-circuit tons and circuit count, then derates it by system uptime and heat exchanger effectiveness to give usable tons. The value of this scenario is the size of the gap it exposes: that gap, priced out over a year, is the budget you can justify spending to close it.
Results at a glance
- Good output capacity: 235 tons (headline result)
- Gross process cooling capacity: 270 tons
- Capacity lost to downtime: 2.7 tons
- Capacity lost to exchanger effectiveness: 32.08 tons
Run it with your numbers
- Every input above is editable in the live Process Cooling Capacity calculator, which recalculates instantly and can be shared with the inputs intact.
Last reviewed 2026-05-12.