Patent ID: 8660702

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a controller device comprising: one or more signal connections; one or more electronic memory elements; and one or more processors, in operable communication with the one or more signal connections and the one or more electronic memory elements; in which the controller device has access to resources that are either stored on the one or more electronic memory elements or are accessible via the one or more signal connections, the resources comprising: an equipment data table that comprises a list of components of a central cooling system and comprises data on characteristics of one or more of the individual ones of the components in the list; an equipment and operational configuration table that comprises computational parameters and operational set points for the central cooling system; an operational efficiency matrix that comprises information that relates different individual cooling load levels, including partial load levels and a full load level, of one or more of the components in the list to energy efficiency of the central cooling system; and executable instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, configure the one or more processors: to dynamically compute an overall cooling load on the central cooling system based on real-time sensor inputs from the central cooling system received via the one or more signal connections; to determine operational control signals for energy-efficient operation of the central cooling system, based on the sensor inputs from the central cooling system received via the one or more signal connections, and on data from the equipment data table, the equipment and operational configuration table, and the operational efficiency matrix, and on respective refrigerant properties from built in refrigerant tables, and on at least one of ambient temperature, relative humidity or ambient dew point; and to provide the operational control signals via the one or more signal connections, wherein the operational control signals comprise signals employed to: select a number of components in the list to operate based on the dynamically computed overall cooling load and based on the information in the operational efficiency matrix that relates the different individual cooling load levels, including the partial load levels and the full load level, of the one or more of the components in the list to the energy efficiency of the central cooling system; and selectively partially load one or more of the selected components based on partial load efficiencies of individual ones of the selected components to lower energy consumption in the central cooling system.