HVAC
FAN COIL EVOLUTION: MEETING THE NEEDS OF TODAY’S BUILDINGS
By Shaun Hurworth, Glen Dimplex H
eating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are an important component of most commercial buildings
as they create a comfortable environment for its occupants. However, these systems have increasingly come under scrutiny as in addition to the necessity for delivering comfort, authorities and building investors require improved energy efficiencies from them in order to meet tightening environmental and regulatory demands. This means that there is an increased demand on building service engineers to create designs which not only meet the comfort requirements of the occupants in a range of different scenarios and environments, but which also takes the building efficiency into account and can adapt the specification of different HVAC technologies to meet the required loads.
For example, one trend in office building design is for larger open plan areas combined with smaller meeting rooms and collaborative spaces. Another is the growing popularity for seeing exposed services and HVAC systems up in the ceiling space. This trend has been driven by architects and designers, and is an aesthetic that has been made even more popular because of adoption by creative businesses such as Google. However, such aesthetic choices must still provide excellent temperature control, indoor air quality and must also meet acceptable noise levels as suggested by the British Council of Offices (BCO) guidelines.
In addition to the mechanical decisions that must be made, the design of HVAC systems today must also consider IoT technology, which not only allows connection to building management systems but can also involve smart controls to provide monitoring and automation of a building’s environment, leading to increased energy efficiencies and comfort levels.
Energy efficiency is already important for both new and existing buildings and will only become more so as the scale of change needed to meet our environmental challenge becomes regulated. According to the government’s Grand Challenge Mission, heating and powering buildings accounts
for 40 per cent of our total energy usage in the UK, and buildings account for over a third of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing the amount of power required by HVAC systems will go some way to ensuring that the UK meets its 2050 target of net zero carbon emissions. Indeed, the Transforming Construction Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund is set to invest over £400 million in new construction, technologies and techniques to achieve this.
EVOLUTION OF THE FAN COIL Integral to many HVAC systems in medium to large commercial buildings is the fan coil unit (FCU). FCUs can offer heating and cooling with responsive control, layout flexibility and high energy efficiency, making them ideal for a broad range of commercial applications. The discussed demand for exposed services, open plan spaces combined with a push for ever improved efficiency has required the fan coil unit to evolve. A complication in this evolution is that the requirements of these spaces in terms of space, efficiency and acceptable noise levels are in conflict with each other. For instance, exposed services have to be quieter as the removal of a false ceiling reduces sound dampening. This results in an increase in unit size to utilise more fans, which can run slower and therefore quieter. Another solution for a quieter unit is to increase the casing to allow for inlet and or discharge attenuation, but this again increases the size of the fan coil.
However, it is not only the desire for quieter units that increases the space a fan coil requires. In the search for energy efficiency, plant technology is increasingly running chilled water and hot water at temperatures closer to ambient in order to decrease the system network losses. Although this is a positive move for overall building efficiency, it does mean that compatible fan coils require more airflow over the coil to produce the specified water to air thermal transfer and this leads to larger units, which can have implications for both noise levels and unit size.
Consequently, with today’s commercial building requirements, the increasing use of IoT to control HVAC systems, and a drive towards higher efficiencies and lower carbon emissions, it is essential that the correct FCU is specified. So how can the right product be specified to satisfy the demands of the project in a cost-efficient manner?
CHOOSING A SOLUTION With requirements for FCUs shifting, manufacturers are evolving their products to meet changing demands, with Ability leading the way. Part of Glen Dimplex Heating & Ventilation, the UK manufacturer has created a new evolution of fan coil design; one which takes these modern
requirements into consideration from the start, rather than as costed changes to existing solutions. This solution reduces compromise to create a compact, powerful yet quiet fan coil unit: the EVO270 Plus Range.
Choosing a fan coil unit to meet specified space requirements seems obvious, but it is essential to consider a solution which has taken this into account at the design stage. Otherwise, there is a risk of installing a unit that has been adapted to, rather than designed for the space, leading to compromises in the fan coil unit. Acceptable noise levels must be considered part of these requirements, but air flow rates should not suffer as a result of achieving them. An FCU which can move a greater volume of air for its size without an increase in noise output is the one to seek out. In addition, many commercial projects may benefit from the ability to adjust water and air flow rates via the Building Management System (BMS), rather than traditional manual adjustment. Choosing an FCU which allows this, as well as having smart controls, reduces fitting and commissioning time as well as enabling tighter controls, improving energy efficiency. Furthermore, the EVO270 Plus utilises EC/DC fan motors which are highly energy efficient and can operate at variable speeds, which can boost and reduce air flow rates depending on the load within the space.
DESIGNS FOR THE FUTURE As we transition to a low carbon, low energy future, regulations will tighten and the pressures on the building industry to deliver against them will increase. The industry will need to evaluate the environmental impact of any technology used within buildings, and FCUs are an important consideration in many building projects. The recent market trend towards exposed building services installations may dictate the acoustic and aesthetic considerations, but choosing an FCU which has been engineered to satisfy these design-led requirements enables specifiers to maintain cost control, meet efficiencies and meet the project’s needs.
Glen Dimplex
www.glendimplex.com FACTORY&HANDLINGSOLUTIONS | NOVEMBER 2019 17
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