Calculation tool for co-evaluating of ventilation energy performance and indoor air quality

¹ VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Tekniikantie 21, 02150 Espoo, Finland
² Aalto University, Department of Civil Engineering, PO Box 12100, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
³ Tallinn University of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Ehitajate tee 5, 19086 Tallinn, Estonia
⁴ Queensland University of Technology (QUT), International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (WHO CC for Air Quality and Health), 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD 4000 Australia

^* Corresponding author: niko.siilin@vtt.fi

Abstract

Building energy consumption constitutes one third of the global energy use and one quarter of carbon dioxide emissions. Heating, ventilation and air conditioning HVAC systems consume 38% of the total building energy consumption. HVAC systems are tasked to provide clean air into the indoor space to maintain indoor air quality (IAQ) and thermal comfort. Therefore, balancing between HVAC energy consumption and optimal IAQ is one of the crucial questions when aiming to reduce building energy consumption. This paper presents a calculation tool for co-evaluation of ventilation energy performance and IAQ. The tool is then exploited to study a theoretical office space using four different ventilation control strategies. The results show that while all the simulated control strategies could maintain similar levels of IAQ, significant differences were demonstrated in their energy performance. The results show that adjusting ventilation rate to match occupancy and implementing efficient heat recovery unit demonstrated significant energy savings potential.