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How can you add value to a commercial building by optimizing ventilation?
The value of a building depends first and foremost on its location, but a lessee will carefully assess its value according to the DPE rating, particularly in view of the recent rise in energy costs. However, the DPE rating only deals with a building's energy consumption and carbon impact. Despite successive changes in the way DPEs are calculated, a double-flow ventilation system will be considered more energy-efficient than a single-flow system, regardless of the region, whereas a single-flow system in the south of France ( France) may consume as much as a double-flow system. Current regulations (dating back almost 40 years) impose a fixed airflow per occupant, so DPEs are based on these airflows.
This means that the DPE does not take into account the modulation of air flow rates, even though the ultimate energy consumption of an insulated building is ventilation. In fact, ventilation-related energy consumption has several components:
- Heat exchanger efficiency
- Air flow rates
- Motor power consumption (doubled for double-flow systems)
Ventilation whose flow rate is modulated according to air quality is therefore a way of controlling all these aspects of energy consumption.
Why ventilate?
In addition to regulatory requirements, ventilation is crucial to the health of the building (risk of condensation) and also to the occupants. Ventilation aims to replace stale air with fresh air, thus diluting pollutants. In the tertiary sector, it improves productivity, while CO2, VOCs and fine particles affect cognitive functions.
What type of ventilation
The table below summarizes the different types of ventilation.
What energy savings can be expected?
Considerable savings of up to 74% of ventilation-related energy are possible. By opting for on-demand ventilation management, the EP5000 multi-sensor sensor can achieve energy savings of between 70% and 74%.
This approach makes a major contribution to meeting the target of a 40% reduction in energy consumption by 2030 in tertiary buildings imposed by the ELAN law.
What value should we place on productivity grains?
Insufficient ventilation leads to a loss of productivity, as the pollutants breathed in enter the bloodstream (including fine particles) and impair brain circulation. Our brain, which represents only 2% of the human body's weight, uses 20% of our total energy consumption. This energy is conveyed by blood flow, and any alteration in the quality of this blood flow has a direct impact on brain function. Even if the activity is purely physical, as the muscles are controlled by the brain, poor air quality will have an impact on productivity.
Dr. Halen, from the Harvard Institute, has demonstrated that by increasing ventilation airflow at an additional cost of $10 per employee per year, the productivity gain could be estimated at $6,000 per employee per year. An incomparably profitable investment! Of course, this productivity depends on the size of the payroll, but considering the weight of a company's payroll in relation to its energy consumption, productivity is not to be neglected, and renting or acquiring a properly ventilated building can quickly prove to be profitable.
Solutions from NanoSense
NanoSense technology, with its multi-sensor probes, is at the forefront of ventilation optimization. These devices monitor air quality and ambient conditions in real time, then adjust ventilation rates according to actual needs, with the aim of reconciling energy efficiency, productivity and occupant health. Because occupants are simultaneously subjected to different pollutants and sometimes inappropriate environments (temperature, lighting, noise), NanoSense 's EP5000 sensor features an algorithm that combines these different exposures (cocktail effect) and calculates physiological effect indices that can be used as a means of supervision and as intuitive instructions.
Conclusion
Invest in an efficient ventilation system equipped with multi-sensor probes to adjust air flow rates as needed, and significantly reduce energy bills while optimizing employee performance. The article above can give you some orders of magnitude. Beyond the DPE, taking ventilation into account can significantly enhance the value of a building.
