Find Your Building's Top Three HVAC Energy-Savings Approaches with the I2SL Laboratory Energy Analysis Tool
Gordon Sharp, Aircuity, Inc.
Analyzing a laboratory's HVAC energy consumption and comparing different energy efficiency strategies is often quite difficult due to the unique characteristics of laboratories, such as the interaction between the different airflow requirements of a laboratory space. Conventional commercial or widely available energy analysis programs do a poor job of modeling these requirements and the different control strategies and systems that have been employed in laboratories to reduce energy consumption. On the other hand, single-system or product-based energy analysis programs also do not appropriately model the complex interactions between the many different energy savings approaches that are often used in combination in laboratories.
A comprehensive laboratory energy analysis and return on investment tool, however, has recently been developed that evaluates the combined savings of multiple different laboratory energy efficiency measures such as chilled beams, multiple types of heat recovery, demand-based controls, VAV fume hood controls, evaporative cooling, and other approaches using typical meteorological year 3 (TMY3) temperature and humidity data for 1,700 domestic and international cities. In addition to energy savings, the analysis tool can also model the impact on the first cost of various strategies due to both the cost impact of the equipment itself plus potential changes to the HVAC capacity requirements resulting from these systems.
This tool is now being made available to the laboratory design and operations community along with associated independent support services through I2SL. This presentation by one of the tool's creators will provide examples of how the tool can be used to help compare and determine the most cost-effective and impactful energy savings approaches for a project based on different combinations of energy conservation systems and approaches, as well as different climates.
Gordon Sharp is the chairman of Aircuity, Inc. and has more than 25 years of wide-ranging entrepreneurial experience and more than 25 United States patents in the fields of energy efficiency and laboratory controls. As founder, former president, and CEO of Phoenix Controls, he led the development of this world leader in laboratory airflow controls that was acquired by Honeywell in 1998. In 2000, Mr. Sharp founded Aircuity, which was spun out of Honeywell and is a smart airside energy efficiency company.
Mr. Sharp is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering. He is executive vice president and a member of the board of directors of I2SL, the nonprofit host of the Labs21 conference. He is also member of two important standards on ventilation: the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)/American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Standard Z9.5 Committee on Laboratory Ventilation and the ASHRAE SSPC 170 Committee on Ventilation of Health Care Facilities.