Are you a startup? Are you a small and medium-scale enterprise? Are you a large organization seeking to establish an office in a given location? Irrespective of the scale and size of your organization, you still seek to reduce your operating expenditure when it comes to running an office space. Whether your office space is of size 500 square feet or 50000 square feet, the goal is to reduce operating expenditure. The energy bill nearly takes 26 - 28% of the overall operating expenditure. But do you know what is the major contributor to the energy bill for running an office space? The major contributor to the energy bill for running a commercial office space is HVAC System. HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning. An HVAC system constitutes approximately 40% of the energy bill for running an office space. Small or large.
Why is it important to optimize the HVAC system?
Therefore, it becomes essential for a startup, a small and medium scale company, a large company, a co-working space to optimize the HVAC system including the central AC system such as a chiller system, or a Ductable AC system, or a VRF system / VRV system. With an optimized HVAC system, the energy bill can be reduced resulting in a reduction in overall operating expenditure for a commercial office space. The company’s founder in the case of a startup should pay attention to this important element before setting up the office space. Likewise, the administrative manager should ideally be tasked to consider various proposals that can result in a decrease in energy bills. When considered on a yearly basis, the decrease in energy bills can be very substantial (in Lakhs of Rupees). The money saved on the energy bill can be better utilized in other productive areas of a company.
How to optimize the HVAC system to decrease the energy bill?
There are many ways in which an HVAC system (already installed or a new one) can be optimized. Some of these ways are:
BLDC Technology: The pumps or fans or blowers used in the typical HVAC system use conventional AC induction motors. These AC induction motors consume very high electricity resulting in a higher energy bill. Therefore, it makes sense to deploy BLDC (Brushless DC) motors (also used in EC fans) to reduce the power intake and that results in a decrease in the energy bill. This is clearly explained from the image below:
Zoning: Through zoning, the temperature can be regulated in different areas of the office space. For example, if one room is fully occupied, then, the temperature can be set to 22 degrees Celsius. While the other rooms which are less occupied can be set to 26 or 27 degrees Celsius. The temperature can be regulated either manually or automatically through temperature sensors.
Heat recovery: Creative Ducting work in an HVAC system can certainly result in pre-cooling of the incoming atmospheric air by the 'return air' from the building. This process can result in a lower load on the cooling coil as the cooling coil will then be needed to cool the pre-cooled air as opposed to cool the hot atmospheric air. And that results in a lower energy bill.
Volume Control Dampers (VCD): These dampers are used to control the volume of the air distributed through the ducts to different areas of the office space. Volume Control Dampers can be manually operated or automatically operated. These days, the trend is to go for automatic VCDs. Based on the set temperature, the dampers open or partially open to let the cool air distribute to different areas of the building. The VCDs also help in achieving Zoning as discussed above.
Ducting work: Ducting work is an extremely important factor in reducing the energy bill for a given HVAC system. The ducts are created to distribute the air (cold or hot) to different areas of the office space. However, if ducts have many joints and sharp edges, then, that can result in leakage as well as the restricted flow of air (cold or hot) to different areas of the office space. Therefore, it becomes extremely important to hire an HVAC contractor who can carry out ducting work in a most efficient way by using lesser numbers of joints and rounding off the sharp edges.
All these above steps can certainly optimize the HVAC system for your office space. In addition to the above steps, a professional HVAC contractor can further suggest ways to optimize the new or established HVAC system for an office space.
At SGL HVAC Engineers and Consultants, we take a great degree of pride in our deliverables. We follow the process of analyzing, planning, sourcing, executing, and servicing. During the analysis and plan stage, we optimize the HVAC system and accordingly recommend energy-efficient ways to companies setting up the commercial office space. This way we are able to achieve a reduction in energy bills for our clients. We are well-versed with current trends in the HVAC industry and implement the latest equipment and tools in order to achieve higher energy-efficiency.
We understand that achieving higher energy-efficiency is not only required to reduce the electricity bill for our clients but also required to reduce the overall carbon footprint.