HVAC
HVAC UNDER STRAIN
Cooling can be one of the biggest energy demands in a commercial building, yet it is often overlooked when efficiency improvements are planned. With EPC requirements tightening and hotter summers becoming the norm, that approach is increasingly difficult to sustain, says Terry Rose, HVAC Director at Integral Cooling Tech.
Another summer of extended heat has left HVAC plant working harder, for longer, than most of it was ever specified to. Systems sized on the odd hot week a decade ago are now being asked to run continuously for weeks at a stretch. The instinct when something fails under that strain is to replace it like-for-like, but doing so is becoming both more expensive and unreliable by the year.
Cooling is often the biggest single energy consumer in a commercial building, so how it's specified and run also has a direct bearing on a building's Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating – an A to G grade showing how energy efficient it is – impacting its broader value and ‘lettability’.
EPC B is the number to plan around In June, the government confirmed that privately rented commercial buildings over 1,000m² must reach EPC B by 2031, where cost-effective, dropping the previously proposed interim step of EPC C by 2027. While this is still an interim response, the direction of travel is firm enough now for facilities managers to plan around. Naturally, buildings that start early will find the work cheaper and less disruptive than those that leave it to the deadline.
TM44 is a chance to act TM44, the mandatory inspection every five years for air conditioning systems over 12kW, is playing an increasingly significant role in this environment. While historically many organisations were happy to skip these inspections and swallow the low fines associated, we have seen a sharp rise in requests recently, a sign that more people are connecting compliance with commercial risk.
That said, a valid TM44 certificate doesn't move an EPC rating on its own. The value is in the report’s ability to identify inefficient settings and outdated controls, allowing facilities managers to build a specific, costed case for which plant is actually worth upgrading. Something as simple as swapping
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a belt-and-pulley fan system for an EC fan wall can produce a meaningful saving once acted on, and that upgrade can then feed positively into a future EPC assessment.
Where the real savings are hiding The visible, high-payback work tends to get done. LED lighting is the obvious example, with most buildings having already made that switch. Cooling and refrigeration, on the other hand, tend to be ignored or neglected far more often. The pattern shows up at a system level too. Often, dampers, controls or entire zones are left running on a schedule that was set years ago, for a use pattern that's since changed.
What facilities managers should be doing now Three questions are worth asking of any building: what's the current accreditation position, what's the actual occupancy and usage pattern compared with five years ago, and what's critical to keep running versus what's simply running out of habit? The last question is usually where the most cost-effective savings sit because it rarely needs capital investment, just a willingness to ask why a system is configured the way it is.
It's also worth checking refrigerant phase-out dates before replacing any ageing plant. Swapping like-for-like under pressure, without checking whether the refrigerant is due to be phased out, risks the same equipment needing replacing again within a few years.
Next summer will put the same plant under the same strain. Facilities managers who adapt to the new reality will help put their organisations and the buildings they look after well ahead of the 2031 deadline.
https://integral.co.uk twitter.com/TomorrowsFM
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