Ashish Rakheja, Managing Partner, AEON Consultants, says, “higher level of automation, with machine learning and IoT in place, is ideal for optimising the operation cost, operating energy and consequently carbon footprint.”
When it comes to design, it starts with passive design features of the building. Called passive, it means how the building architecture is conceived with its ability to maximize daylighting in the space, promote indoor & outdoor environmental quality & optimum building envelope. These simple considerations for most Indian cities have a significant impact on reducing cooling loads, enhancing occupant visual & thermal comfort and reducing carbon footprint of the building. These practices alone can reduce cooling loads by nearly 30-35 percent in a well-designed building.
India is blessed with over 300 days of daylighting in most of the country. A well-designed building can aim for over 80-90% optimally day-lit indoor spaces and avoid use of artificial lights most part of the day. Thus, the heat emitted by the lighting fixtures is completely avoided and it reduces cooling load. Simultaneously, insulated envelope & good passive ventilation practices ensure heat gain into air conditioned is minimised. A right mix of technology thereafter like use of VFD, BLDC motors, economizer cycles, energy recovery etc helps to achieve highest levels of energy performance & ensures good IEQ for the occupants. Thus, it is a win-win for both the building owners & its occupants. AEON has been actively promoting this concept and engages with architectural design firms in helping them validate the building planning & its performance very early in the game using digital twinning practices.
AEON own Corporate office at Noida is a standing example of the mix of passive & active design practices with 100% day-lighting, optimum envelope with shading devices and energy efficient equipment which helps it to achieve unbelievably low energy consumption. This office has inspired many project owners to adopt these simple techniques & reduce their investment into expensive technology products. Finally, the mantle of good design must be shifted to the operation practices. It is a hard fact that “A well designed building which is poorly operated or a poorly designed building with good operations will not meet the objectives of lowering building carbon footprint. Both design & operations have to be optimum to ensure optimum use of natural resources. This requires focus on HVAC system commissioning, stricter maintenance regime & good operation practices. This is also evident in the changing face of our building rating systems which now focus on end result rather than design. While the design expertise of Indian engineers and availability of world class products has matured multi-fold in last two decades of Green movement, however, now its time to develop good commissioning & operation practices through training as well as minimizing human intervention with automation systems.
Opportunities for MEP
India has emerged as a Building Design Hub & BIM Capital for the world wherein most large Global design firms either outsource or run a captive studio in our country. In addition, with growing urbanization over the last 3 decades, the scale, diversity and complexity of projects in the Country parallels or exceeds the development in any other part of the world. Thus, thanks to these two phenomena, Indian MEP engineers are now exposed to best design & construction practices. As India prepares to transform itself to a low carbon economy, integration of services & speed of construction with least waste generation is the need of the hour. Thus, there is a preference amongst Clients for integrated MEP design firms & integrated MEP construction firms.This space is being filled up largely by Civil contracting firms currently. The MEP Design, Construction & operations will continue to move to centre stage as they will play a crucial role in construction of Net Zero Energy/ Water/Carbon buildings. There is an impending need to grow the skills of our engineers to prepare for this emerging opportunity. HVAC companies are most evolved amongst its contemporaries as they contribute to a large carbon footprint in a building and attract relatively better professionals. We are likely to see this trend grow and HVAC & Control engineers will dominate the MEP industry.
Automation to impact MEP operations
As stated above, there is a distinct shift of focus from building designs to now building operations. The green building movement of the last two decades was all about design practices. However, the new rating systems now require demonstration of actual building operation rather than design. The new rating systems like Net Zero Energy, Net Zero Water, Net Zero Waste, Resilience, Carbon can only be achieved if building operations are optimized. However, here lies the challenge as India neither has quality nor quantity of the Operation staff required for the large footprint for its building stock which is set to grow at the pace of one Chicago every year. This is further complicated by the fact that buildings are now complex machines with interdependency of sub-systems. This is where automation plays an important role.
Automation helps us eliminate or rather minimise human intervention. The sub-routines and algorithms help to undertake not only day to day operations but also bring in preventive maintenance regimes to make the operations reliable & optimum. The traditional automation systems boundaries are spread further with the advent of IoT and AI. The shift is to distributed intelligence and the integration on IoT platforms will lead to convergence which will optimize the inter-relationships between complex sub-systems. My own take will be that the next decade is all about integration & automation as it is a foundation for a shift towards a low carbon economy. One can expect the maximum disruption coming from this space.
Detection to predict fire and gas leakages from HVAC systems Refrigerants leak detection systems especially for corrosive & hazardous refrigerants is an important aspect in buildings to ensure safety of occupants. With growing use of VRF systems, a large quantity of refrigerant flows through soft copper pipes which can leak out into small indoor spaces thereby posing risk to the occupants. It is important to be mindful of RCL (Refrigerant Concentration Limit) in an enclosed space and provide gas detection coupled with automatic venting arrangement, if needed. Sadly, this aspect is neglected in most Indian buildings due to ignorance of users/ designers/installers. HVAC system’s most important role is in smoke management during fire. The loss of life in case of building fires is largely on account of smoke and that is where a well-designed & maintained system can help to avoid losses by providing a crucial time window to escape during an emergency. The fire safety codes over the last decade in our country have undergone a significant change and require building owners to invest into the same. However, once again our inadequate operation & maintenance practices coupled with poor compliances provide the biggest risk to human safety in buildings. All the aspects discussed earlier for automation, operator training & maintenance regime once again need to be addressed.
Design changes for HVAC from an MEP perspective
Declaration by Hon’ble Prime Minister at COP 26 of 2070 being set as the target year for India to achieve carbon neutrality, the focus of the construction industry is shifting to de-carbonisation. ASHRAE released a white paper on de-carbonisation a few months back. Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) released its rating system for Net Zero Energy/Water/Waste and eventually low carbon buildings. As buildings account for nearly 40% of global carbon emissions and HVAC systems are the largest energy consuming component in a building, hence there is a need for air-conditioning engineers to optimize design, construction and operation of the systems to achieve the end objective of de-carbonization. All stakeholders like designers, manufacturers, contractors and operators play an important role. While significant work is ongoing in design optimization and operations of buildings through IoT& AI, however, its time that awareness must be brought to the manufacturing & construction practices. My advice to HVAC engineers/installers & building operators in our country is to harmonize with nature.
Ashish Rakheja, Managing Partner, AEON Consultants, says, “higher level of automation, with machine learning and IoT in place, is ideal for optimising the operation cost, operating energy and consequently carbon footprint.”
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