Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning

HVAC is necessary in order to maintain the air in buildings fresh and within certain temperatures that are comfortable for humans to live and work efficiently [12]. Temperature control is particularly important and challenging in modern buildings because heat gains from sunlight, lighting and various business machines accumulate within the envelope and cause indoor temperatures to increase quickly to uncomfortable levels. Even if outside air temperature is adequate, ventilation with windows might not be possible in tall buildings where wind speeds are likely to cause draughts. For buildings with few floors, open windows can cause inconveniences such as dust and noise. Also, because natural air flow is effective for a depth of six metres, most deep plan offices cannot benefit from windows.

Air conditioning requires that the air supplied to the conditioned zone is pure with a comfortable temperature, humidity and speed. This means that air conditioning almost always requires cooling [12]. For this reason, air conditioning is a major consumer of energy. Energy use for heating and air conditioning accounts for more than 25% of the primary energy consumed in commercial buildings in the U.S. where offices have the largest share. 27% percent of energy consumed for cooling is due to office floor space.

2.2.3.1. Evolution of HVAC in Offices

Air conditioning existed as early as 1850's with devices that utilised fan-forced heating systems. Cooling of air had to wait until late 1880's where the advances in the refrigeration technologies made them applicable to buildings. The efforts to develop a

42 proper cooling methodology however, brought in the necessity of approaching the idea in a more scientific perspective. How to cool the air to a given temperature and remove the moisture from air for a desired result in humidity was not as easy as heating the air to the specified temperature with burning of some fuel. These breakthroughs came at early 1920's to theatres and other buildings where large crowds usually gathered ( [13] and [14] ).

In 1930's, offices had already become a distinct category of buildings. Skyscrapers had already started to appear at this time but they did not benefit from air conditioning technology. For example Woolworth and Chrysler buildings in New York reached unprecedented heights but their principal ventilation was dependent on nature with operational windows. It took some time before air conditioning principles were applied to office buildings. The first building that is fully sealed, air conditioned, open plan and that has been a model to modern office architecture was the Lever House built in 1952. Air conditioning in this building was so fundamental to the design that the building could not operate without it ( [13] and [14] .).

Air conditioning until 1970's were done with constant volume systems which were inefficient. 1970's saw the ascent of VAV (variable air volume) systems. Variable air volume systems that carried constant temperature air allowed less energy consumption by utilising outside air. This system also allowed less plant load because not all parts of the building required the same amount of cooling. Today, VAV remains the dominant air conditioning technology incorporated in large office buildings ( [13] and [14] ).

43 Air conditioning systems have two main duties, to supply fresh air to the building and to maintain the indoor air at a comfortable temperature and humidity [10].

Air supply Requirements

Supplying fresh air to an office zone is the primary function of an air conditioning system. The amount of fresh air to keep a human being alive varies from 0.1 litres/second to 1.2 litres/second. However, enough air from outside must be supplied to reduce the accumulation of body odours. According to [15], outdoor air supply rate for an office should be 8 litres/second per person when it is occupied. To supply this air, some systems incorporate complex control mechanisms that provide air based on the number of occupants in the building. However, most systems work on constant operation regimes where the amount of ventilation is fixed based on the operating schedules of the building. For example in working days and office hours, the building is ventilated more rapidly compared to non-working days and out of office hours.

Temperature Requirements

Comfortable indoor air temperature for humans is 22-24° C [10]. The air is either heated or cooled to maintain its temperature within these limits. If the air is warm, a compressor operates to supply a cooling agent to cooling coils. If it is cool, a heating element operates to supply the heating coils. In basic systems, operation of the compressor or the heater is usually controlled by a thermostat which determines whether the zone requires cooling or heating.

44 Based on the cooling technology implemented, air conditioning systems in commercial buildings are usually broadly categorised into three: central, packaged and individual systems [12].

Central systems are systems where a central cooling plant (a chiller) is used to deliver cool water to air handling units or fan coil units that treat the air and that are located in proximity to conditioned zones. Packaged systems are systems where cooling and heat rejection is carried out in the same unit. These systems utilise direct expansion coils for cooling. Cooling is delivered directly to the supply air in a refrigerant evaporator coil. Individual systems can be considered as small capacity packaged units. They operate like packaged systems but deliver the air directly from the outside environment to inside through a hole in the envelope of the building. According to [12], packaged systems have been the main choice for cooling among contractors and designers in the past two decades due to their reduced equipment cost and installation time (Figure 4).

Figure 4: HVAC equipment distribution in the U.S. for cooled floor space (left) and heated floor space (right) [14].

45 They are used to cool 48% of cooled floor space in offices in the US and this percentage is increasing. As they are the most dominant HVAC type, packaged systems will be described in more detail in the following section.

2.2.3.4. Structure of a packaged HVAC Unit

Packaged units can be classified into two types; split and rooftop. Split units consist of separate devices for humidifying and heat rejection. Rooftop units which are more common in larger installations operate as single entities. These units have cooling capacities that vary between 10kW – 850kW and air flow rates ranging between 400 l/s to 38000 l/s [15].

A packaged system has four major energy consuming parts; compressor, heating coil, fans and pumps [12]. In a rooftop system (Figure 5) in which the air is circulated between the conditioned zone and the unit, these elements work at different intervals.

46

Figure 5: Schematic of a Packaged System. Power-Using components are circled [12].

The air first enters to a filter through an inlet duct (or return fan if it is circulated), then to a cooling coil where the compressor cools it(or furnace coil if heating is required instead) and finally the supply fan that supplies the conditioned air to the conditioned environment. Cooling is delivered directly to the supply air and heat is rejected in a condenser coil to the outside air. Extract or exhaust fans operate continuously to discharge the contaminated air to the outside environment.

2.2.3.5. Control of an Air Conditioning System

Air temperature control and ventilation in a conditioned environment can be carried out in several ways [16]. One of the most economical ways of maintaining the temperature is circulating the conditioned air and mixing it with the outside air to maintain freshness. Figure 6 shows the schematic of a simple but common ventilation system that recycles the return air that is sourced from the conditioned environment.

47 In this figure, elements of the control system are marked as follows:

1) Temperature controller 2) Room temperature sensor 3) Outside air temperature sensor 4) Extract air temperature sensor 5) Outside air damper

6) Circulated air damper 7) Exhaust air damper 8) Motorized heating valve 9) Motorized cooling valve

10) Hysteresis control depending on the outside and circulating air temperatures.

In this control scheme, the temperature controller (1) reads the room temperature sensor(2). If the temperature falls below the given temperature set point, the controller minimises the intake of fresh air and circulates most of the exhaust air by closing the

48 circulation dampers (5, 6 and 7). It also opens the heating valve (8) to enable heating of the supply air. When the indoor temperature starts to increase, the heating valve is closed. Also, more outside air is allowed to assist cooling. If the temperature (or enthalpy) of the outside air sensed by the sensor(3) is higher than return air sensor(4), it means that it is no longer economical to use the outside air. Hence the dampers (5, 6 and 7) are closed to circulate most of the indoor air.

Regardless of a central system or a packaged system, the control methodology explained above can be applied to most of the HVAC systems that utilise the return air. As can be observed, the supply and return fans operate continuously to circulate the air for filtration and to bring the air temperature to the desired levels by either heating it or cooling it.

The continuous operation of the fans causes significant energy consumption throughout the year. This is highlighted in the papers published by researchers who investigated the control aspects of HVAC systems. For example, Wang et al [17] evaluate a number of control strategies that can be implemented in a packaged air conditioning controller. They note that in most packaged units, a thermostat controls the operation of the compressor or the gas furnace depending on whether the conditioned space requires heating or cooling. Even though the compressor or the gas furnace is cycled, supply and return fans operate continuously when the building is occupied hence causing inefficiencies.

The observation of Wang et al is in line with the study of Westphalen et al [18]. They indicate that although rated power consumption of supply fans of packaged AC units are less than the compressors', their overall energy consumption is almost equal to

49 compressors' or gas furnaces because they are operated at 100% power when the building is occupied.