Stay cool while saving money and energy

In Australia, Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) typically accounts for over 60 per cent of energy use in commercial buildings.

Technologies that reduce the amount of electricity consumed to satisfy HVAC requirements can therefore offer significant economic and environmental benefits.

Using advanced HVAC control techniques, CSIRO is developing a novel automated control system to improve the performance of both new and existing buildings.

As part of the Energy Transformed Flagship, CSIRO researchers have developed an automated control system called optiCOOL which can be fitted to almost any HVAC control system.

optiCOOL intelligently alters the operation of the building’s HVAC control system according to key operation priorities such as cost savings, occupant comfort and energy efficiency.

These priorities are set by the user and allow greenhouse gas reductions and energy costs to be managed with regard to their impact on occupant comfort.

The technology has been designed to improve energy efficiency, reduce excessive energy consumption and save on running costs without sacrificing the comfort of the people who occupy the building.

To do this, optiCOOL uses feedback from occupants via comfortSENSE software which assesses the comfort level of occupants using an electronic survey.

People can register whether they are too hot or too cold and send this information to the optiCOOL controller and the air-conditioning can be adjusted accordingly.

CSIRO is currently developing monitoring tools designed to fine-tune building controls for improved efficiency, in addition to detecting and diagnosing faults with HVAC equipment before they happen.

Predictive tools are also under development which will can analyse the effect of various energy efficiency or demand response strategies before actual implementation.

optiCOOL connects to a majority of existing Building Management Systems and is highly suitable for deployment in existing building stock.