Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1385297
48 | J U N E 2 0 2 1 Mechanical & HVAC Systems Singleton points out that in the overall push to implement condensing technologies in HVAC systems, "There are many challenges regarding appliance change-outs, especially in the commercial sector, and we need the industry to be prepared for them. One fear is that people will use unapproved venting materials when changing out non-condens- ing appliances with condensing appliances. Routing new systems is another task. These are the type of things that will be covered in our guide." The expec- tation is for this best practices guide to be published by NRCan this summer. The regulatory push to increase energy effi- ciency does not detract from the fact that HVAC engineers by themselves continue to demonstrate innovation and ingenuity in a wide variety of proj- ects, and Tempeff is an example. Tempeff's roots date back to the 1970s when the DualCore technol- ogy was pioneered in Europe, and building on that history it has been able to provide energy recovery equipment built in Canada with up to a 90 percent energy efficiency. Tom Todoruk, national sales manager for Tempeff, says, "Our technology is remarkably sim- ple, and as long as we get accurate and complete design information we can manufacture equipment that is capable of recovering up to 90 percent of the heat energy contained in the exhaust air and trans- fer that energy to the fresh outside air being drawn into the building, to meet required ventilation tar- gets. Energy recovery itself has been around for a long time, but what is unique about our equipment is that the mechanical system design will not need to incorporate an energy robbing defrost strategy, ultimately leading to increased energy savings and the simplified system design will help reduce ongo- ing maintenance costs." The Tempeff heat recovery technology has dem- onstrated success at extremely low temperatures without developing frost. Thousands of installations have been performed in North America with the majority of the installations being in the Northern U.S. and Canada. The Tempeff system relies on two heat exchangers (energy cores) and two recov- ery phases: one core adds energy to the supply air stream, heating up the air, and simultaneously the other core absorbs energy from the exhaust air stream. This cycle reverses in the second phase, with the second core adding energy to the supply air stream and heating up the air, while the first core absorbs energy from the exhaust air stream. A recent example of Tempeff's contribution as part of a highly efficient mechanical system design is Montreal's renovated De Gaspe Complex with a gross area of 104,508 square metres spread over 11 floors in 5445 de Gaspe and 12 floors in 5455 de Gaspe. The HVAC infrastructure upgrade retained the existing hot water network but added control valves and larger fins on the radiators. The original boilers were replaced by condensing boilers, and a new thermal loop connects to packaged water source heat pumps in each suite. A new heat rejection sys- tem consisting of two dry coolers and two new cross flow open cooling towers with an isolating plate heat exchanger was installed on the roof to evacuate the extra heat of the thermal loop. The new boilers are connected to enable the injection of heat to the loop when necessary. These and other upgrades resulted in a 36.12 per- cent natural gas savings and 14.7 percent electricity savings through the prioritization of heat recov- ery. De Gaspe's energy cost has been reduced from $18.94/m2 to $15.07/m2, despite an increase in occu- pancy rate from 58 to 98 percent. The project has also avoided the emission of over 952.4 tons of CO2 per year, equivalent to removing 201 cars from the road. Meanwhile, after spending years establish- ing Thermenex across Western Canada as a system that optimizes building thermal energy by using a thermal gradient header (TGH) – essentially a pipe with a warm end and a cold end that holistically integrates carefully arranged HVAC systems – Jeff Weston, principal at Thermenex, decided to rebrand the technology as TGH. He explains, "TGH is the result of lessons learned on earlier Thermenex Systems and consists of a simplified piping arrangement. We decided to focus on one sector, health care, and we are helping Providence Health Care on their path to 80 per- cent GHG reduction by providing solutions to five of their six hospitals. Four of these facilities are already expanding their TGHs even though we just started them up in the 2021 spring season." TGH provides all the benefits of the original Thermenex system for lower installation cost and simpler standardized control logic, and Weston says that in addition to health care, TGH will also be installed at Vancouver Port Authority's current expansion project. A w w w. t h e r m e n e x . c o m T G H T h e r m a l G r a d i e n t H e a d e r Lowering carbon emissions using the least amount of electricity. HVAC DESIGN - REDEFINED Optimize thermal energy? Brilliant! Heating and cooling in one pipe? Crazy? Thermenex.indd 1 2021-06-10 2:28