Optimizing Control of Dedicated Outdoor Air Systems with Energy Recovery in Commercial Buildings

Abstract

AbstractDedicated outdoor air systems (DOASs) with energy recovery ventilators (ERVs) are increasingly popular in new buildings and have the potential to greatly reduce building energy consumption through elimination of zone-level summer reheat and free preconditioning of outdoor ventilation air through energy recovery with building exhaust air, often using an enthalpy wheel heat exchanger. In practice, many of these systems, however, are run suboptimally or are designed with complex and counterintuitive configurations that require detailed engineering analysis to understand optimal control sequences. Three real-world case studies from commercial building retuning are presented where control deficiencies in DOASs with ERVs led to excess energy consumption. An analysis of the potential energy savings from correcting these deficiencies as well as a discussion of how each analysis was performed during the retuning audit is included. Energy savings can vary significantly based on the climate and the baseline ...