Fan coil units
Smarter management for softer landings
Delivering ‘soft landings’ for fan coil and other hydronic systems is becoming increasingly important. Elio Galluzzi explains why improved visualisation of system performance is vital, and how it can be achieved cost-effectively
Operating assets efficiently is
fundamental to the Government Soft Landings policy and facilitating soft landings is set to evolve from a desirable criterion to an absolute requirement
32 | July 2014 | HVR
key challenges facing building services engineers is how to ensure that heating and cooling systems are designed in a way that enables building owners to operate these assets efficiently throughout their life. Indeed, this is a fundamental requirement of the Government Soft Landings (GSL) policy, and facilitating soft landings is set to evolve from a ‘desirable’ criterion to an absolute requirement.
GSL is already mandated for central government construction projects by 2016 and, given the benefits this concept delivers, is likely to be demanded by many other public and private sector projects in the near future. The idea of soft landings makes
perfect sense. It recognises that buildings change over time, so
that the building services may need to change as well. The reali- ty, though, has been that many heating and cooling systems con- tinue to operate with their original settings irrespective of changes in building usage or whether the set- tings have ‘drifted’ since the sys- tem was commissioned. Very often this is because nobody really knows how the systems are performing. Usually, performance data at individual zone level isn’t readily available and without that information how can problems or issues be identified or resolved? Ultimately, building operators are looking for smarter management of hydronic systems throughout their lifecycle, so what they need is an easy way to visualise what is happening in those systems.
For example, the temperature
differential ( T) between flow and return temperatures for both heating and cooling systems is critical to the efficiency of the system. In heating systems a high T delivers the lower return tem- peratures that condensing boilers, CHP and heat pumps require to operate at maximum efficiency. Similarly, a low T in a chilled water system can reduce chiller operating capacity, so that more chillers run at part-load and less than optimum efficiency. As already noted, delivering soft landings requires systems that enable building operators to understand the operation of their systems and monitor their performance. Clearly the T will be measured at system level by the building management system
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