Development of a Metric for Quantifying Energy Efficiency for HVAC Plants at CERN

Cooling and air conditioning systems are essential to maintaining the stable operating conditions required by CERN’s accelerator and experimental infrastructure. These HVAC systems are significant energy consumers, making it critical to assess and improve their energy efficiency. The objective of this project was to contribute to the development of a scalable metric to evaluate the energy efficiency of HVAC systems across CERN, with a focus on HVAC Plant 311. After a thorough literature review, the Total System Performance Ratio (TSPR) was selected as the core performance metric. Operational and design data including live and historical process values, system schematics, and basic building characteristics were collected and analysed to compute the TSPR for Plant 311. The resulting TSPR value of 1.4 indicates the plant’s current energy performance and serves as a reference for future improvements. This plant-specific case study demonstrates the applicability of TSPR within CERN’s operational context and provides a foundation for benchmarking performance and guiding energy-saving strategies across the wider HVAC infrastructure.