WindowMaster, Europe's largest provider of natural comfort and smoke ventilation solutions, has presented important research findings on the energy consumption of ventilation systems at a CIBSE Technical Symposium.
Fittingly, the symposium was held at the Arts and Design Academy at Liverpool John Moores University, one of WindowMaster's NV Advance projects.
WindowMaster's Jannick Roth presented a paper entitled 'Hybrid Ventilation - The Best Ventilation Concept for Future School Buildings', based upon modelling work completed by the Fraunhofer Institute.
The paper demonstrated that natural ventilation already provides reduced energy consumption at a rate that meets regulations that will not be generally in force until 2015.
Regulations coming into force in 2015 stipulate that specific fan power (SFP) should be reduced from the current standard over the next two years. Specific Fan Power is the energy-efficiency of fan air movement systems measured by the electric power that is needed to drive a fan relative to the amount of air that is circulated through the fan.
Natural ventilation already has this energy consumption whereas primary energy consumption from mechanical ventilation must come down from a current level of almost 30 KWh/m2/year.
The Fraunhofer study presented at the CIBSE symposium compared three systems - automated natural ventilation (NV), balanced mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MV) and hybrid ventilation (HV) - using detailed modelling for the refurbishment of an existing school building. The energy demand for heating and ventilating the building using each of the systems was calculated for three European cities: London, Copenhagen and Munich.
The result shows that HV, combining both mechanical and natural ventilation elements, enables energy savings of up to 50 per cent compared with MV at 2015 performance levels or NV alone.
George Adams, CIBSE President Elect, said: "The papers address practical engineering experiences as well as current research and development. The programme for the technical symposium shows the depth of work that is being undertaken to take our knowledge and understanding forward."
Richard Arnott, WindowMaster UK and Ireland market manager, added: "'Delivering buildings that are truly fit for purpose' was the theme of this year's technical symposium and we were very pleased to be part of it.
"The symposium provided an opportunity for building experts to exchange practical experience as well as new research findings and observations to help inform the practice of good building services engineering into the future.
"It was also pleasing to note that research has shown that energy consumption figures for NV systems are much better all round compared to mechanical systems."
