Demand Control Ventilation, Indoor Air Quality and Energy Conservation Issues in the Tropics

In the light of ever increasing oil prices and rapidly depleting fossil fuel resources, energyconservation strategies in buildings become popular and necessary design goals. However, it is important to note that resulting poor ventilation in the occupied zones at part-load operating conditions or even unanticipated peak-load conditions due to a different occupancy pattern can often lead to major problems associated with poor Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). Demand Control Ventilation (DCV) offers significant benefits due to its potential to conserve energy and, at the same time, contribute to good IAQ. An energy simulation approach is adopted in this paper to estimate the annual energy saving potential for a typical medium-rise office building in Singapore. Inadequacies in conventional DCV strategies are presented and a newly developed Single Coil Twin Fan (SCTF) system is introduced as a viable and energy efficient technology for enhanced IAQ in the tropics.