Preserving healthy IAQ in buildings is key to healthy life

“People today prefer to live in buildings having healthy air quality, safety, and comfort. Delta’s UNO Smart Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) solution aims to provide people with a comfortable, healthy building environment” –  Hemant Agarwal, Business Head, Building Automation Business Group (BABG), Delta Electronics India.

Talking about technology intervention in creating a comfortable ambience at buildings, Hemant Agarwal, Business Head, Building Automation Business Group (BABG), Delta Electronics India talks about UNO smart IAQ solution that ensures air quality for a healthy building environment.

How do you delineate the demand and the significance of HVAC in building automation, in the current scenario?
Building automation starts with HVAC. Be it in corporate buildings, hospitals or data centers, every building needs HVAC control and monitoring. In Building Automation, the major control operation (around 60 percent of the complete building automation) is for HVAC which includes ACPlant Room, AHU, VAV, VRV etc.

Looking at the current scenario, a complete building automation project has mainly three aspects: Mechanical (HVAC), Electrical and Low Voltage equipment.

HVAC equipment include: Chillers, Chilled Water Pump, Condenser Water Pump, Cooling Towers, Air Handling Unit, Heat Recovery Wheel, Air Washer, Exhaust Fan, Fresh Air Fan, Variable Air Volume Boxes, VRVs, Precision Air Conditioning Units, Celling Suspended Units, Fan Coil Units etc. The Electrical equipment include Lift, DG, UPS, Energy Meters, HT/LT Panel Integrations, Lighting Control etc. Low Voltage equipment include CCTV, Access Control, Fire Alarm System Integration etc.

Talking about Delta, we have accomplished some prestigious projects having major portion of controlling HVAC equipment in the building. Delta Controllers are equipped with an LCD display (128×64) with back¬light and jog dial for manual local operation and override. Device and data point information is displayed in text form and via graphic symbols.

What kind of integrated automated solutions do you offer for air commercial and industrial air conditioning?
There isn’t any difference in solutions (Product) for air Conditioning at Commercial and Industrial sites. The operation can be different based on the equipment. We can use any Delta controller for these applications, but we need to consider the Input/ Output points from the equipment. Controllers are equipped with two Ethernet ports including a built-in Ethernet switch. This allows for building a daisy chained line topology of up to 20 devices, which reduces costs for network installation. Dual Ethernet port devices also allow the setup of a redundant Ethernet installation (ring topology), which increases reliability. The redundant Ethernet topology is enabled by the rapid spanning tree protocol (RSTP), which is supported by most managed switches.

Can you talk about Delta’s latest-generation UNO Smart IAQ Solution for air quality control?
Every person spends more than 80 percent of time in the indoor environment (including in homes, offices or other buildings). Today, the design requirements for building construction are not limited to power saving and performance. The focus has shifted on taking care of human health, comfort and productivity in buildings. For example, in commercial buildings, high levels of carbon dioxide can cause drowsiness and reduce productivity. Or in kindergartens and nursery centre, PM2.5 / PM10 is too high, it can easily trigger allergies in sensitive children and they may become more serious. Excess formaldehyde can cause cancer.

Delta’s UNO next is an all-in one air quality sensor with temperature, humidity, CO2, PM2.5, PM10, illuminance, total volatile organic compounds, HCHO, CO, ozone, which can increase energy efficiency in buildings by triggering ventilator activation as a standalone solution or via a building automation system.

UNO next is suitable for several application in sites, and it can sense various pollutant gases that may cause adverse effects on humans, including residential, commercial buildings, medical institutions, sensitive places such as nursing homes, baby care centre, etc. UNO next provides NFC tag, which can easily transmit APP or web page links to mobile devices to open, thereby enabling a wider range of control and management tasks.

What technologies do you suggest and do you offer to fight the spread of pandemic COVID-19 in industrial and commercial space?
There is apparently no technology available today which can stop the spread of COVID-19. But yes, Delta’s UNO next gives people a healthy environment inside a building. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has led to an increased awareness regarding hygiene and health of building environments among the general public. Apart from efficient air conditioners and ventilation systems inside buildings, people also expect buildings to have three important qualities: healthy air quality, safety, and comfort.

With abundant experience in green buildings, Delta provides solutions for user-friendly building environments. The concept of Delta’s UNO Smart Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) solution aims to provide people with a comfortable, healthy building environment. It ensures IAQ by thorough air quality monitoring, delivering visualisations and statistics, and adjusting air conditioners and ventilation systems in real time.

For instance, Delta’s UNO solution can simulate future air quality status by analysing historical data of the ambient parameters and turn on relevant air conditioners and ventilation systems in advance. It reduces discomfort caused by poor air quality and improves user satisfaction. The solution can achieve an optimal lighting environment by adjusting lamp brightness based on the detected indoor brightness through the integration of controllers and lighting.

How can your automated solutions contribute in reducing the energy consumption in large and automated buildings?
We can save thermal and electrical energy through Delta Controllers. In the large buildings, major Energy consumption area is HVAC and lighting. Delta provides HVAC control on basis of scheduling and load requirement and through that we are successfully able to reduce the energy consumption. Controlling the lights on basis of occupancy and lux level can also result in reducing energy consumption.

In addition to the above mentioned measures, external meters can be integrated via M Bus or Mod-bus to perfectly meet energy management and energy reporting applications.