23% Energy Savings for Oplink’s Chiller Plant

23% Energy Savings for Oplink’s Chiller Plant — No Hardware Changes Required

Oplink’s Zhuhai facility, a wholly owned subsidiary of Molex (Koch Industries), produces optical modules and 5G wireless equipment under tightly controlled environmental conditions. As a result, the central cooling system plays a critical role in both product quality and operational stability.

The site operates three production buildings (≈42,000 m² of cooling area) with a chiller plant running 24/7. Manual PLC-based control limited system-level visibility and made efficiency optimization difficult under varying load conditions.

To address this, Oplink deployed DeepCtrls’ physics-based optimization platform — without replacing existing equipment.
The platform continuously models chiller, pump, and cooling tower performance in real time and automatically determines optimal operating strategies based on actual demand and system constraints.
Results:

• Up to 23.37% reduction in chiller plant energy consumption
• ~1.29 million kWh saved annually
• No mechanical retrofit required

A practical example of how physics-based optimization can improve HVAC energy performance in electronics manufacturing while maintaining strict environmental requirements.