Optimizing Control of Dedicated Outdoor Air Systems with Energy Recovery in Commercial Buildings
Publication: Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 1
Abstract
Dedicated outdoor air systems (DOASs) with energy recovery ventilators (ERVs) are increasingly popular in new buildings and have the potential to greatly reduce building energy consumption through elimination of zone-level summer reheat and free preconditioning of outdoor ventilation air through energy recovery with building exhaust air, often using an enthalpy wheel heat exchanger. In practice, many of these systems, however, are run suboptimally or are designed with complex and counterintuitive configurations that require detailed engineering analysis to understand optimal control sequences. Three real-world case studies from commercial building retuning are presented where control deficiencies in DOASs with ERVs led to excess energy consumption. An analysis of the potential energy savings from correcting these deficiencies as well as a discussion of how each analysis was performed during the retuning audit is included. Energy savings can vary significantly based on the climate and the baseline system’s specific suboptimal operation; however, opportunities for saving energy have been documented in these case studies.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the Washington State Attorney General’s Office and the Buildings Technologies Program of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for supporting the research and development effort. The authors would also like to thank Sue Arey for editorial support in preparing this document.
References
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Energy Engineering
Volume 143 • Issue 1 • February 2017
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 22, 2015
Accepted: Feb 12, 2016
Published online: Apr 19, 2016
Discussion open until: Sep 19, 2016
Published in print: Feb 1, 2017
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