SMART BUILDINGS & GREEN SOLUTIONS
Buildings can improve in adapting over their lifetime
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Amidst the concerning backdrop of compromised air quality and escalating energy inefficiencies in buildings, the pressing need for holistic interventions in both indoor air management and sustainable architectural practices emerges as a critical global imperative
ir quality has been identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the single largest global health risk. Poor air quality can persist if not actively
managed, negatively impacting occupant health and wellbeing. It’s also estimated that buildings typically consume two to five times more energy than initially predicted at the design stage, due to the actual usage of spaces deviating too much from the original design. This wasted energy is termed the “Performance Gap” by organisations such as RIBA, BRE Group and CIBSE. This results in unnecessary costs for building owners and a negative environmental impact. In addition, roughly 75% of the EU building stock is energy inefficient, and buildings are responsible for 40% of our energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions. To address these major problems, Helvar
has recently launched an innovative Helvar Senses solution. It is a solution that incorporates smart environmental sensing into the Helvar offering for creating even more adaptable and sustainable spaces.
The solution equips building owners and operators with the tools to significantly improve air quality and operational efficiency, measure performance, reduce energy consumption, and thereby lessen emissions and improve building users’ wellbeing. All of these are necessary outcomes to achieve sustainability goals and help comply with directives such as CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive). Data and insights received optimise the way that we use energy in our spaces and allow for more informed decision-making in building operations thus addressing the health risk of air quality and the issue of wasted energy consumption during the operational phase of the building. By combining climate, air quality, acoustics and space usage data, Helvar Senses drives Helvar’s impact beyond lighting, helping to facilitate easy communication between different building systems, allowing systems to share experiences and data, and to learn and evolve beyond their initial design. “We believe that buildings can become
more sustainable and energy efficient than they are today while still providing a fantastic occupant experience. At Helvar, we are very excited about our latest innovation, Helvar Senses, which enables smart buildings to become more energy efficient with better support for people’s wellbeing. With Helvar Senses, we can make smart buildings more future-proof by empowering them to evolve
over their lifetime — thereby realising our mission of Brighter Spaces”, says Adel Hattab, chief executive of Helvar.
“Our solutions facilitate easy communication between different building systems, allowing them to share experiences and data, and to learn and evolve beyond their initial design. Ultimately, this improves the quality of the indoor environment and thus human wellbeing and safety, as well as energy efficiency”, says Hattab. Helvar Senses is an evolutionary step for Helvar intelligent lighting solutions adding environmental sensing and insights. As lighting sensors are typically the densest sensor network in a building, incorporating environmental senses such as light, CO2, VOCs, temperature, humidity, sound and air pressure becomes a very practical way to collect data about the overall conditions in the space. When this data is combined with occupancy data and
refined through analytics, building owners and operators have an improved understanding of how to optimise the spaces.
“Helvar Senses can interact with other building services to create the best occupantexperience with the lowest possible emissions. By breaking free from traditional building system silos, we can unlock the full potential of buildings and help them to continuously learn”, says Thet Oo, director of wired solutions. Helvar is an international lighting technologies company specialising in intelligent and energy- saving lighting solutions. Intelligent lighting is essential to achieving optimal building sustainability and to supporting the wellbeing of every person using a space. Helvar lighting control solutions help to
create smart environments built for the future, harnessing data, creating tangible insights, and integrating seamlessly with other systems.
28 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER FEBRUARY 2024
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