Climate & Buildings: HVAC and AI are game-changers for the office of the future

#Today, many businesses are moving away from a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 routine and instead are adopting a hybrid approach of telecommuting and on-site presence. This leaves many spaces unused during the day, while others are fully occupied.

Other aspects have also changed. Interior comfort in commercial spaces is no longer just a matter of being hot or cold. Air quality and the regulation of indoor environments are now health and safety issues. At the same time, decarbonizing buildings is becoming a government priority.

How can building owners and their operations managers respond to these rapid changes while slowing or even reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions? This sounds complicated.

But, is this really the case?

Most commercial space owners and managers are already familiar with some of the advanced technologies in HVAC systems. New buildings under construction or planned are taking into account the latest technologies. However, thousands of existing buildings are not changing that quickly.

Owners may be reluctant to invest in environmental controls for older buildings due to cost, downtime during installation, and fear of no financial return. Only when mechanical systems fail, or local decarbonization regulations change, will the latest indoor climate controls be considered. A better understanding of the full economic picture surrounding the latest HVAC management is necessary.

Experts in the field of PropTech say that artificial intelligence (AI) will be used in the future to sense, monitor and control systems inside buildings.

A 2022 study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) concluded: “Achieving aggressive decarbonization goals will require fundamental steps to reduce the carbon footprint of existing buildings. For businesses Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) controls provide continuous and dynamic optimization of new smart building technologies that have the potential to advance building operations to achieve decarbonized, efficient and flexible control."

LBNL's review of a 20th-century building in Washington, A two-year field study was conducted on the 12-story, 300,000-square-foot building in the mid-1960s. The building already has some building management systems integrated into it, so a complete system upgrade is not required.

Due to COVID, the building experienced varying occupancy rates during the study period. This gives Prescriptive Data’s cloud-based building operations platform Nantum OS the opportunity to understand how different occupancy conditions affect its interior spaces.

“The platform uses occupancy data, thermal models and machine learning algorithms to implement optimal startup, shutdown and intraday fan speed adjustments for air handling units (AHUs) on each floor during the pandemic.”

For example, using 22 occupancy counters (two on each floor), it is possible to adjust the heat levels in unoccupied or occupied areas of the space, taking into account the heat emitted by the human body.

The technology reduces AHU’s workday operating time by more than three hours and reduces lunchtime fan speeds by more than 10%. Allowing adjustments to the heating and cooling system, reducing overall operating costs by 6%. The latest version of the software can now adjust heating and cooling based on the availability of renewable energy, reducing a building’s carbon footprint.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “Over the past 50 years, building electricity use has grown dramatically as a share of annual U.S. electricity use, from 25% in the 1950s to 40% in the early 1970s. , more than 76% by 2012."

For example, by using the most energy-efficient walls, windows and the latest heating and air conditioning equipment, commercial cooling costs can be reduced by 78%.

Besides sheer savings, one should also remember that in a healthy building the occupants are there. Those with efficient, properly tuned HVAC systems will take fewer sick days.

When health considerations are taken into consideration, the costs of improving the indoor environment can be appropriately weighed against the health and productivity benefits. This makes architecture essentially a human resources tool.

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