To many this may have passed under the radar and not been considered, however at Daikin Applied UK, they have not forgotten it and have worked hard to upgrade design software and performance to ensure that all new units supplied in the new year meet the directive.
These new design criteria that was developed to continue to reduce global carbon emissions, is focused upon the Air Handling Market (AHU) and becomes mandatory for all new equipment. Focused completely on efficiency the directive sets requirements for fan performance, use of multi-speed or variable speed drives as well as the inclusion of heat recovery devices.
The aims of the regulation are to implement the Ecodesign Directive (2009/125/EC) whose aims are to have more efficient equipment installed and a conscious use of Energy in all European Territories. The goal is 20-20-20, that is 20 per cent of EU Energy from renewables plus 20 per cent reduction of Greenhouses Gas emissions and 20 per cent increase of energy efficiency, to be reached by the year 2020.
Following the implementation of the components efficiency related regulation; the EU commission started to look at complete equipment and turned to ventilation products. The 1253 regulation defines two main families residential and non-residential ventilation units.
A residential ventilation unit (RVU) unit is identified with a maximum air flow delivered from 30m3/h up to 250m3/h (the manufacturer could declare up to 1000m3/h for the unit as RVU, but must be used exclusively for residential application – no mixed use). Non-residential ventilation units start from 250m3/h and above.
All the AHU’s supplied by Daikin Applied UK are covered under the umbrella of the NRVU, this family must comply with the requirement foreseen by the Reg. 1253/2014 from 1st January 2016.
The regulation mainly tackles two key aspects for energy unit consumption, first is thermal efficiency and second is aeraulic efficiency. The main elements being
- All ventilation units, except dual use units (unit used for more than one purpose), shall be equipped with a multi-speed drive or a variable speed drive.
- All ventilation with two fans (supply and Extract are called BVU) shall have a Heat Recovery System (HRS) with Thermal By-pass.
- The minimum thermal efficiency ?t_nrvu of all HRS (except run-around HRS in BVUs) shall be a minimum of 67 per cent (is foreseen a bonus on SFPint_limit if exceeding the efficiency) in 2016 and 73 per cent in 2018.
- The minimum thermal efficiency ?t_nrvu of run-around HRS in BVUs shall be 63 per cent (is foreseen a bonus on SFPint_limit if exceeding the efficiency) in 2016 and 68 per cent in 2018.
- Setting the maximum internal specific fan power of ventilation components (SFPint_limit) in W/(m3/s) for BVU and for UVU (Unidirectional Ventilation Unit)
The above is a very brief summary of Ecodesign Lot 6 (1253/2014).