The best way to balance indoor air quality and energy savings
It is commonly accepted that most water distribution facilities work on demand, so why should it be different for air distribution, with each cubic metre of fresh air to warm during the heating season having a significant economic and environmental cost?
The concept of demand controlled ventilation rests on the principle of providing occupants with the right amount of fresh air, when they need it, and where this is useful. With intelligent airflow management, energy savings are made on every occasion that the need for ventilation is low or null, which can represent more than half the time. Conversely, an activity which emits indoor air pollution such as food preparation in a kitchen, a shower, or even the release of odorous metabolic compounds, generates a need for a greater airflow to remove the pollution quickly.
At every moment, demand controlled ventilation offers an optimisation of heating consumption and indoor air quality, on a fully automated basis. Every Aereco system is designed on this concept, which beyond being particularly effective for the comfort of the occupant, has many other benefits for the working of the ventilation system.
Numerous additional benefits
In addition to combining indoor air quality and energy saving optimisation, demand controlled ventilation demonstrates many indirect benefits resulting from the reduction of average airflow:
Reduced average power consumption of the fan
By reducing the average airflow rate, demand controlled ventilation systems allow the fan to work well below the maximum airflow, and thus at very low power. This aspect clearly promotes unbalanced ventilation systems, such as those from Aereco, when compared with the standard heat recovery systems that typically have two motors operating at a higher speed (with higher average airflow), which consequently consume electrical energy at a much higher rate.
Less clogging of filters, ducts and terminals
The inherently reduced airflow of demand controlled ventilation leads to the reduction of the total amount of particles that can clog the components that make up the ventilation system, which is directly proportional to the total volume of air introduced by the system in any given period. Thus, maintenance of ductwork and filters (where these have been used), can be reduced along with the power consumption of the fan.
Increased life of fans
By reducing average airflow, demand controlled ventilation permits a reduction of the demands placed on the fan, and thereby increases its longevity. This is because the longevity of the fan depends in particular upon the power at which it works, and that power is directly related to the request of average airflow through the ventilation system.
Greater availability of pressure and airflow for terminals
In a collective ductwork system, serving either an individual home or collective dwellings, the airflow modulation at the various terminals permits the avoidance of overloading the ducts with unnecessary airflow rates, as would be the case with a constant airflow ventilation system. Thus, the rooms or dwellings with a low airflow requirement release the duct space for the rooms or dwellings with a higher need for ventilation. These can then benefit from all the pressure and flow potential of the ductwork, with losses in the ducts being optimised and reduced.
Reduced size of ductwork to gain valuable floor space
Airflow modulation permits a reduction in the size of the ventilation ductwork, exploiting the advantage presented by the fact that in a collective system, not all of the extract terminals are working at the maximum level simultaneously. This phenomenon, called airflow time-dispatching, has been verified during numerous in-situ experiments carried out by Aereco. The ductwork can therefore be sized for a total airflow lower than the sum of the maximum airflows, unlike that of a constant airflow system where the size of ducting corresponds to the strict sum of airflow. This use of smaller ducts, can thereby allow a reduction in the total floor space required for ducting.