smart ventilation

The installation of central mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) in renovated apartment buildings presents considerable challenges, primarily due to insufficient space for ductwork. Consequently, many renovation projects are installing decentralised MVHR units, catering to individual apartments. Many of these devices offer the option of communicating with their controllers via Modbus, BACnet, KNX, or internet APIs, provided the necessary resources are available for the connection.

The Performance 2 project (2020-2024) is a French national research project that aims to evaluate the durability of Humidity-based Demand Controlled Ventilation (DCV) systems installed in two multi-family social housing buildings (Paris and Villeurbanne) over than 10 years ago. This evaluation includes the analysis of continuous measurements performed on the ventilation system (sensors located close to the air terminal devices) and two additional Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) campaigns including two other monitors placed in the “dry” rooms conducted in 13 dwellings.

The buildings ‘sector is facing multiple challenges due to the need to generalize a sober approach and to reduce its energy consumption, its CO2 emissions and its impact on climate change, to reduce its environmental impact and its carbon footprint, to reduce the burden of disease due to exposure to unhealthy indoor environments and to adapt and be resilient in the face of climate change and environmental changes such as the increase in pandemics, the urban heat island and outdoor pollution.

In future building regulations, building performance is going to be extended to global performance, including indoor air quality (IAQ). In the energy performance (EP) field, successive regulations pushed for a "performance-based" approach, based on an energy consumption requirement at the design stage. Nevertheless, ventilation regulations throughout the world are still mostly based on prescriptive approaches, setting airflows requirements.

Humidity-based DCV systems have been widely used in France for 35 years and are considered as a reference system, including for low-energy residential buildings. The on-going Performance 2 project delivers the preliminary results of a thirteen-year monitoring in thirty social housing apartments.

Ambitious goals regarding CO2 neutrality put the energy renovations of apartment buildings in the top places on the energy efficiency & sustainability agenda in Denmark. Improved airtightness and maximum primary energy requirements imply utilization of ventilation with heat recovery. The control of ventilation installed during renovations often considers a whole dwelling as one climate zone, which neglects differences among individual rooms. Increased insulation and tightness leads to higher sensitivity to solar and occupancy gains, moisture loads and pollutants.