Monitoring IAQ with digital sensors will be the future trend

 

During an interaction with TCBU Magazine, Vaibhav Pitale, Managing Director – India and South West Asia, Belimo, discuss the imperativeness of IAQ, role of digitalisation and the need for increased emphasis on air quality indoor to lead a healthy life. 

How important is the indoor air quality?

Indoor Air Quality has a great relevance today. Being responsible citizens of a global community, we must ensure that our future, and the next generation’s future is protected. Here, the industries must take up the opportunity and the responsibility in highlighting such critical issues and take all required actions, right from discussion with the stake holders to designing the product and convincing the consumers. We cannot eliminate such issues entirely as they are related to the environment, but we can surely take measures to restrict them. 

IAQ has a great impact on our life and lifestyle as it defines our life span. we have to maintain that we must maintain healthy air indoor and outdoor and any compromise in the quality can lead to blunder where we may end up losing our life. As a global company, Belimo comprehends the need for quality air indoor and outdoor. We work closely with the product designing team and with the government regulators to increase emphasis on awareness.  Moreover, I think COVID-19 has really helped us to increase consumer acceptance. Today, people are talking about clean air and air quality, and are willing to hear us out; this is a positive upswing we see post COVID. 

What are the impacts of digitalisation on IAQ? 

I think it’s just matter of time because when you talk about quality, measurement becomes a vital requirement. And IAQ is very important and critical topic where we need require product and technology to measure the temperature, humidity level and this can be done through digitalised sensors for testing and measurement.  Today, with the help of digitalisation we can connect automated sensors to the BMS and link them through IoT and IIoT. 

With automated sensors, I can switch-on my air-conditioning system and control the environment indoor. Today, we have technologies through which I can check and maintain the oxygen and carbon dioxide level before entering my home or my air-conditioned vehicle. This also allows me to maintain an optimum room temperature before I enter. We can control numerous activities of our internal environment through digitalisation. This is why most of the companies across various industries are adapting digitalisation to control their IAQ and indoor activities. So, I think IoT enabled products are the future trends for automation and digitalisation. 

What’s the perspective today towards air quality post pandemic?

From the sustainable perspective, I think pandemic has increased an emphasis on maintaining a quality IAQ. Globally, there are some specific trends which are expected to dominate the industry for the next 10 to 15 years. first is from the digitalisation and automation as the industry is moving fast towards digital technologies and automated products for ease operations and maintenance.

Then comes sustainability – today, we are more concerned about the future of our next generation, our social future, our commitment towards climate change, sustainability of profits towards our efforts.Third key aspect is health, and this is where we need to have detailed eye to comprehend the sources; here IAQ tops the list. Until we ensure that the air we breathe is clean and healthy, we cannot lead a healthy life, and this is global social responsibility where not just Belimo as a company, but every individual can also contribute in maintaining a healthy environment indoor. contribute. 

What is the role of filters and filtrations in maintaining air quality?

Effective filtration ensures that the air circulated and re-circulated inside your room or your system is not polluted. We can’t stop the of outside air, from entering our premises because ultimately you need to match your carbon oxygen levels. But we must also ensure that the CO2 inhaled is diluted and we breathe pure air. Here, filters have a key role to play, as these filters ensure that we breathe healthy air. We must change or clean the filters in the prescribed time frame to preserve its life. Also, there are these important parameters that we need to consider in terms of indoor air quality measurement and visibility. Filters don’t just define cooling aspects but it also defines the humidity level in our system, and transmission happens when the relative humidity is less than 40 percent or more than 60 percent. This basically means, when you maintan a quality which is less than average or more than required can be disastrous to our health.

Parts of air-conditioners and air quality solutions have become costlier. How will this price rise impact the market?

In order to be competitive, you must work towards enhancing your products’ efficiency as the products we introduce to the market, has an important role to play. As a global company, Belimo invests around 8 – 8.3 percent of its global revenues into innovation to ensure the production services meet the changing market trends in the future. 

From the budget perspective, there has been a significant push towards Make in India campaign, where the government is batting to increase the localised manufacturing at global level. The dynamics have to be evident in terms of demands and supply from the manufacturing segment. Looking at efficiency improvement, which every country has gone through even India will adapt to the newer ways of being more efficient because from a digital perspective, digitalisation is making the things more competitive and this is where our industry is focusing now. Obviously, our entire value proposition comes from innovative solution which are both feature oriented.

Since the industries are focusing more towards innovations, cost implications don’t really matter to that great extent. Because, when you make the product more efficient, the ROI is less in 1-2 years. So, it doesn’t play a very important role when especially coming from a company like Belimo which contributes 0.3 percent of the entire project value, so the cost from the investment perspective is very low.

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I think IoT enabled products are the future trends for automation and digitalisation. And the pandemic has increase the consumer acceptance for IAQ.

Vaibhav Pitale, Managing Director – India and South West Asia, Belimo