Practical Approach and Method of Demand Control Ventilation in an Animal Facility with 50% HVAC Energy Saving (ST-16-C014)

In this presentation, valuable information about demand control ventilation (DCV) in laboratory animal facilities will be shown as stated below. 1) Practical approach and method of DCV by indoor air quality (IAQ) sensing, 2) Actual trend graphs of IAQ sensing and ventilation rates which are synchronized with animal biorhythm (circadian rhythm) and 3) Successful results of saving HVAC energy by reducing total ventilation.

 In a major Japanese laboratory animal facility, a multiplexed IAQ sensing system which continually measures certain types of IAQ values at multiple locations was installed, and VAV control which varies ventilation rates based on those IAQ measurements was implemented. Because it was a first trial of automated DCV in Japan, target areas were confined to two (one rodents’ and one primates’) animal holding rooms, and a step-by-step approach was taken as follows. 1) In order to find out the correlation between ventilation rates and IAQ values, ventilation rates was changed manually (6, 9, 12, 15 ACH for every 2 weeks) with continuing multiplexed IAQ sensing. 2) Based on the results of the foregoing analysis, automated DCV in accordance with concentration differences between supply and room (or room exhaust) air was implemented. The DCV was tried under the conditions of three series of set points (“low”, “middle” and “high”). In the case of “low” set points, ACH varied synchronized with animal biorhythm (circadian rhythm) and total ventilation was saved by 20.6-27.5%. On the other hand, in the case of “high” set points, ACH almost did NOT increase except during the in-room activity (e.g., cage changing or room cleaning) and total ventilation was saved by 47.5-48.7%