Heat Pumps Today

www.acrjournal.uk/heat-pumps 17 C A R B O N E M I S S I O N G O A L S energy e cient world, if somethings not broken, why would you fix it? Building owners and facility managers (FMs) are conflicted between sustainability goals and operating expenses. As the energy crisis and rise of the cost of living continues to take precedence, short-term cuts on spending are likely to have a negative impact on any energy e ciency progress. Business leaders, owners, and FMs must come together to make the right choices that benefit the company, the planet, and the occupants of a building to ensure everyone is safe, happy, and healthy. Taking a holistic approach To take the first step on any energy e ciency journey, we must first understand what energy is being used and how. With the ability to bring data from di‚erent sources throughout a building into a common platform, building owners and FMs can see where ine ciencies lie and make contextualised decisions based on the insights. HVAC systems are complex, with lots of individual components needing to work together e‚ectively to ensure reliable and energy e cient system performance. Just one component poorly designed, maintained or incorrectly controlled can have a negative impact on the overall system performance. We now have an increased amount of accessible data from all types of building systems such as HVAC, security, fire, lighting, and IT. Each of these systems produces a huge amount of data and when used in combination with each other can make buildings safer, more comfortable, and more e cient. If we then connect all these areas with intelligent systems, you can make real-time, informed decisions to reduce emissions, improve on sustainability, and increase occupant comfort. It's more than HVAC No matter which HVAC solutions a facilities manager chooses, it’s not a case of installing them and then waving goodbye. By implementing smart technologies, such as smart connected chillers, FMs can use predictive maintenance and monitoring tools, which use AI and automation to predict issues before they arise. This ensures equipment runs reliably and downtime can be minimised. Investments into new HVAC solutions with smart tech means e ciency savings can be made throughout a building. Imagine a particular room, or entire floor is empty. Smart systems can monitor occupancy levels and adapt the heating accordingly, so nothing is wasted. Such a setup helps create huge savings – financially and environmentally – especially amid an energy crisis. With the pandemic shining the spotlight on our health, ensuring employees have a safe and productive return to the o ce by improving indoor air quality (IAQ) was a much-needed wake up call. Not only do we want a healthy planet, but we also need healthy people. Some buildings in the UK have bad ventilation and overall IAQ. With mechanical ventilation in these environments, we can continue to improve IAQ, and keep the focus firmly on improving the air we breathe, even as the e‚ects from the pandemic dissipate. When fresh air flows into a building, the spread of airborne viruses can be reduced, sta‚ sick days can be lowered, and businesses can experience increased overall output – a win-win for all. For businesses, governments, schools, and hospitals across the country, IAQ may soon become the number one priority – on par with sustainability initiatives. But this isn’t without its own challenges. Improving IAQ requires and increased consumption of energy as you’re pumping fresh air from the outside, indoors. There will be a fine balance to meet the goals of improving IAQ whilst keeping consumption low to meet both goals. Driving incentives for retrofitting buildings It’s encouraging to see many businesses set out goals to meet carbon emissions targets, but there is still a long way to go. Governments will need to introduce new regulations and incentives to encourage businesses to retrofit outdated and ine cient technology. Retrofitting existing buildings with new technologies, improving energy e ciency, and creating more e‚ective building management systems now needs to be top of the agenda. It’s clear the solution isn’t demolishing ine cient structures and building newer, shinier ones from scratch – that would be counterproductive on trying to drive solutions to climate change. We need an overhaul of our existing buildings and need to think di‚erently about how we’re using energy. To meet the ambitious net-zero and emissions goals, we better start sooner, rather than later.