HVAC perspective from a global energy aggregate
The global energy demand as measured by total energy supply (TES) was circa 13,300 Mtoe (Million tonnes of oil equivalent) in 2020. International Energy Agency proclaim that energy use in advanced economies will increase slightly after a worldwide down-blip during the pandemic, but the total energy demand is expected to return to its pre-crisis level by 2023.
According to the Energy and Buildings Journal, energy consumption by Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) in both residential and commercial buildings is between 25% to 40% of overall building energy consumption in developed countries – with cooling as the fastest growing use of energy in buildings. The energy demand for space cooling will more than triple by 2050 – consuming as much electricity as all of China and India today. There appears enormous opportunity to influence the energy-efficiency in HVAC, thus outlining sustainable paths to future of HVAC, without straining the energy system and the environment. The current advancement of electronics makes it possible to plug almost any machinery into the Internet and HVAC is not an exclusion.
The course of the energy consumption might be affected by changing some of the key variables; one of them is incorporating today’s digital realities of Industry 4.0 – the IoT with a network of devices connected with each other through the Web. Technology is at the forefront of HVAC trends and simply put, HVAC and Internet of Things (IoT) connect through commands produced by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms – to build Intelligent HVAC.
The Realm of Inter-connectivity
Connectivity is a key feature of IoT, wherein a digital ecosystem leverages networked HVAC field devices and takes full control of their data. The natural evolution of Building Management System (BMS) into smart HVAC using IoT implements effective optimization & energy-saving strategies in buildings and reduces operating expenses, installation & maintenance costs. Let’s explain how.
A typical BMS performs such functions as controlling by putting ON/OFF or modulating dampers, fans, valves, pumps and monitoring input/ output by historical logs – thus limited networked controls are confined to the particular unit or the local network within the building. IoT adds another dimension of analytics and optimization, with access to all of the same data as the BMS. Its purpose is to analyse patterns and trends in the data to provide meaningful indicators of building performance and provide opportunities for improvement. IoT also effects changing the pre-sets and modifying how the algorithms are applied and to what data points. Thus, IoT can make the process of gathering data wirelessly much easier with sensors integrated into the building to provide real-time monitoring, analytics, and decision-making tools. A simple application of IoT in HVAC has sensors that collect data, a cloud hub or a computer that receives, stores and analyses the information, controllers that regulate the activity on chillers, air handling units (AHU’s), cooling towers, cooling & heating devices and logic-based algorithms that enable user control the system – all of this autonomously exchanging information between the devices, triggering actions and controlling each other independently.
To achieve real-life low energy consumption, it is important that both the design and service HVAC engineers know about the energy use of HVAC systems in practice – to enable a better prediction & analysis and to devise intelligent algorithms to affect what an HVAC system should consume in practice. From data correlations, trends, anomalies, deviations, root causes, and other key operational information, one should be able to predict with more certainty where HVAC energy use is likely to be occurring in equipment in real applications, and therefore where one should concentrate efforts on reducing this use.
The interplay between AI & IoT in HVAC
The Internet of Things (IoT) is enabling HVAC to become more flexible. While IoT deals with devices interacting using the internet, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the real driving force behind the IoT’s full potential. AI makes the devices learn from their data, experience, but more importantly, measures the data for meaningful trends and insights. In essence, IoT with smart improved controls, machine learnt AI & data enabled systems can exploit cross-service synergies and optimise the load distribution of energy demand for a HVAC system.
The gathered data can be integrated with environmental data and analysed by algorithms & artificial intelligence for providing analytics & optimization of energy spent. The software-enabled HVAC systems can compile data into reports to identify usage trends, system status, and past performance, which can be used to inform preventive maintenance and identify the source when something malfunctions for faster repairs. Technicians can quickly identify components to relevant specifications, source parts for repairs and commence repair activities to minimize downtime.
For instance, an intelligence enabled predictive maintenance can keep important elements of the HVAC system such as the AHU’s, pumps, motors, and compressors—healthier longer. Clogged filters make fans work harder, so rather than changing them according to a predetermined schedule, why not change them only as often as you need to? IoT sensors set to monitor air flow can alert when filters are clogged or not getting proper air flow, which allows the user to take informed decisions. Sensors can gather data of equipment operating longer or lesser than its average machine hours, duty cycles or annual usage hours, most part failures in an equipment and decide applying simulation, data analytics, and optimization throughout their operation and maintenance lifecycles. Likewise, sensors placed in various areas, monitoring CO2 levels in real time, controlling the outside air supply based on real-time occupancy is a simple way to increase the building’s operating efficiency and significantly reduce energy costs at the same time. Continuously reading the sensor data, comparing it with daily and annual trends and based on CO2 levels, the intelligence can automatically direct the AHU’s to adjust the outside air intake based on trend data. AI enabled IoT platforms can also track the outdoor conditions such as temperature, humidity and position of the sun. For instance, if one part of a building is not in direct exposure to sunlight, then the logic to provide comparatively less cooling during the summer and more heat during the winter months would be prudent. If there are smart blinds installed, the system can open and close the blinds based on the position of the sun. Such data-driven best practices can be ramped up to deliver greater energy & cost efficiencies.
The quote, ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’ is very apt for HVAC systems and the trends and future progression of modern HVAC systems in the years to come will be based on technology and cloud-native AI enabled IoT setups – thus shaping the energy consumption in HVAC systems.
References:
https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2020/outlook-for-electricity
https://www.iea.org/reports/india-energy-outlook-2021
https://blog.fairbanksenergy.com/energy-consumption-by-sector-charts-and-data-points
