The control of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) is crucial to get right. An effective HVAC strategy not only ensures comfort for the occupants of your building but can also limit utility costs, reduce your overall carbon footprint, and minimize the risk of serious faults and maintenance issues. More than that, in certain industries like healthcare, HVAC performance can have a dramatic impact on patient recovery times and outcomes. With this in mind, what steps can you take to safeguard its performance?

Arloid is the force behind the world’s most advanced AI for HVAC optimization. Using our technology, building managers in a multitude of sectors have developed highly successful, resourceful, and efficient strategies for HVAC.

In this blog, we outline 5 factors to consider when looking to improve your building’s HVAC strategy.

1. Maintenance

The condition and age of an HVAC system can play a major role in its efficiency. That’s why frequent and regular maintenance should be a priority for building managers in any industry, ensuring the system can perform with a minimal amount of energy. Not only does a poorly maintained HVAC system pose higher operational costs, but unexpected faults can have a heavy and disruptive financial toll. HVAC maintenance also protects the internal air quality of your building, as a build-up of dust on air ducts and air filters can have an impact on ventilation. For a certain buildings like hospitals where ventilation needs to be carefully controlled, the importance of this aspect of HVAC performance cannot be understated. But, according to the Carbon Trust, cleaning fans, filters, and air ducts is estimated to improve HVAC efficiency by up to 60%. Simply put, an HVAC strategy that doesn’t include preventative maintenance, regular upkeep, and cleaning, is a strategy set to fall short of requirements.

2. Modelling

Understanding the thermal behavior of your building is a great way to inform your HVAC strategy, and this can be done through building energy modeling. This involves the digital replication of the building itself using a variety of ultra-specific data which can then undergo many thousands of simulation cycles to observe the best possible performance of HVAC in numerous scenarios. Through this method, you can identify the optimum comfort and efficiency indices for a multitude of environmental conditions and occupancy levels – critical insights for any building manager set on reform. Some building managers are even harnessing the power of AI to enhance the power of their simulation. During each cycle, AI will be learning to respond to live data and maintain an equilibrium that reflects the insights gained during the modeling stage.

3. Monitoring

Monitoring HVAC performance is an extension of the previous two points, but its importance is worth underscoring again. As a building manager, ensuring you always have an overview of how the system is currently operating contributes to the power of your preventative maintenance, allowing you to make the adjustments and improvements necessary to guarantee successful HVAC. Comprehensive monitoring also allows you to keep track of the impact of your improvements so you can go on to justify future investments to stakeholders and demonstrate the savings gained. At Arloid, we provide clients with total HVAC visibility through a centralized dashboard that compares actual data with the optimum baseline, tracking the energy saved and permitting full control over the HVAC function.

4. Investment

When looking for ways to optimize HVAC, you’ll likely be told that significant investment in new technology is necessary. This is because if your current HVAC infrastructure is outdated, it just won’t offer the same level of performance as modern systems. There is a range of advanced technologies on the market that can help to improve HVAC efficiency and sustainability, and scheduling future investment into your strategy can be worthwhile. Despite this, improvements are possible without any upfront costs. Our pioneering solution to HVAC optimization is available with zero CAPEX – instead, our financial model asks for a proportion of the savings we achieve on your behalf. We have even worked with building managers to enhance the performance of historical systems, allowing improvements to be made without the disruption and financial outlay a total replacement would entail. By integrating our advanced technology with legacy infrastructure, we make savings of up to 30% possible in just 60 days.

5. Intelligence

Successful HVAC strategies are smart strategies – in more ways than one. AI is making an impact across the built environment, offering improved performance whilst simultaneously limiting energy spending. Though some utility optimization companies offer improvements using legacy data, Deep Reinforcement Learning means AI can work with live information and respond in real-time to changes in conditions – making it the most efficient and successful method on the market. Intelligent HVAC control also facilities nuanced functionality according to thermal microzones. From hospitals to warehouses, many buildings have sections with differing thermal requirements – whether that’s due to occupancy level, activity level, function, the sensitivity of contents, or something else. By splitting the building into distinct zones, AI can provide the optimum settings for each area.

Create a Smart HVAC Strategy with Innovative AI

Looking for a fast, results-driven way to enhance your HVAC strategy? Arloid has the solution. Our intelligent AI is capable of delivering improvements to HVAC performance within 60 days of implementation. With zero upfront costs and a track record of 30% savings, AI is proving integral to the HVAC strategy of building managers far and wide.