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Optimising the Fresh Air Economiser
Abstract
This paper proposes using measurements
of CO2 to infer the amount of Outside Air (OA)
ventilation delivered to a space, either to
diagnose over-ventilation, which can cause
excess heating and cooling loads, or for Demand
Controlled Ventilation (DCV), another method
of ventilation control.
The fresh air economiser is an energy
saving strategy that modulates the amount of
outside (fresh) air supplied to a space in order to
reduce its cooling loads. This strategy can allow
excessive amounts of ventilation during times
when the economizer is not active, which can
contribute to high heating energy use during
peak conditions.
The prevalence of building carbon dioxide
(CO2) measurements in the 400 - 700 ppm range
outside of the temperature range where
economizers are intended to operate indicates
that many buildings are supplying much (often
ten times) more fresh air than is necessary.
Citation
Biship, R. (2013). Optimising the Fresh Air Economiser. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /151422.