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august 2015 | 49 Mechanical & HVaC systems " The mechanical and HVAC sector focuses on custom sustainable designs by Godfrey Budd "If it's not affordable, it's not sustainable." Until recently, that mantra was mostly the purview of a rela- tively small cadre of technocrats, environmental NGOs and alleged dreamers. Instead of worrying that if you emphasized the environment, you sacrificed economi- cally, they said that the right approach to a project or enterprise – in construction and other sectors – would harvest both economic and environmental benefits. Lately, however, that mantra has been going more mainstream. Take the mechanical and HVAC sector. HVAC specialists and others focused on the energy management of buildings anticipate significant change and progress in the sector over the next decade or two. New and recent technologies and systems will improve space temperature control, enable better volume flow and result in shorter reaction times to changing conditions, says Collin Cronkhite, mechani- cal engineering lead at Williams Engineering Canada. Simultaneous heating and cooling systems, with a modular design, a new type of chiller, a heat pump and heat recovery, have become common over the past three years or so. "Simultaneous heating and cooling is still new and there's some incremental capital cost, but payback is good. I think this type of system is a game changer," explains Cronkhite. Such systems are a great fit for a burgeoning retrofit market. Cronkhite says that retrofits account for over 90 per cent of recent installations. One project involved an upgrade to a recreation complex with a gym and a swimming pool for which a new simultaneous heating/ cooling system with heat recovery was installed. "So about 80 per cent of the year you could transfer heat to the pool. We're using the simultaneous system to heat the pool, but it could be reversed," says Cronkhite. He expects that improved potential for optimizing and exploiting locally-sourced energy will help drive change in the HVAC sector in the next few years. He points to a company that uses a patented hydronic energy exchange piping arrangement that is designed to optimize the transfer, exchange and reuse of a building's available thermal energy and says, "the big advance lately for Thermenex is the control system." The company now has two main delivery methods, a prefabricated factory assembled modular mechanical room and a site built system. Both systems integrate Thermenex's patented thermal header, a Thermenex logic controller and a Modular Thermal Energy Centre (MTEC). "Some buildings benefit by having the entire main mechanical plant brought the site and hoisted into place. There is no need to use a building area for a mechanical room, however, if the owner prefers a site-built mechanical room we can custom design and fabricate that solution as well," says Ian Hall, principal at TC Thermenex. The Thermenex system is being installed in various projects underway in B.C. and Alberta. Prefab units are slated for an aquatic centre in Cochrane, Alberta, and a new science building at Langara College in Vancouver. Both are currently under construction. Then there's a prefab system that is planned for a new recreation complex at Sylvan Lake, which is currently in design, and a custom system that is being installed at the Quantum Matter Institute (QMI) at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The system can be used for a group of buildings or a larger single building, typically over 50,000 square feet. "In the case of UBC's Earth Sciences Building, we have reduced gas consumption by 95 per cent, the building heats itself," says Hall. "The key is to elimi- nate thermal waste by maximizing the reuse of energy. You need a diversity of requirements common in most large buildings. Large lab buildings have energy intensity that eventually turns to heat. We collect and upgrade that heat which is then moved to where it's needed. Our patented header piping concept does that more effectively than any other system available and we now have proof, provided to us by an independent study performed by UBC." The first District Thermenex project was done in Vancouver, B.C. for a group of 11 apartment condo buildings called Shannon Estates. "It's entirely resi- dential. It has air conditioning and an outdoor pool. The size and diversity helps with the economics. Since then we have also completed a district energy sharing system for the City of Coquitlam," says Hall. Locally-sourced cooling and heating, as Conkhite and others note, is attracting interest for its energy- saving potential. Sterling Cooper Consultants, for example, has consulted for several recent projects, which involved either ground-sourced energy, geo- exchange, or sea-water, used for cooling the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel. Also targeting performance and energy cost sav- ings is a new cooling system that combines active desiccant dehumidification with regeneration input. Available in five standard models ranging up to 20,000 cubic feet per minute capacity, the ASCENDANT series from SEMCO is ideal for hospital operating rooms, archival and dry storage, hotels and condo buildings, Going Retro HVAC system installation from TC Thermenex Inc. ASCENDANT cooling system from SEMCO.

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