Efficient HVAC Systems

This course is a part of Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems, a 4-course Professional Certificate series from edX.

In this course you will start by identifying the different steps a HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) engineers need to follow to come to a proper design while collaborating with the architect.

You will then learn how to distribute heat and cold using air and water systems, what temperature levels to use in both and how that relates to the type of energy supply and to the thermal quality of the building construction. You will further deepen your knowledge on air handling units and how to humidify and dehumidify air when needed and what that does mean for the energy consumption. As ventilation systems are often responsible for local thermal discomfort, you will also discover how different distribution systems lead to different comfort experiences and different indoor air qualities and you will know which simple control techniques can be applied.

Finally you will study a modern complex system consisting of an aquifer thermal storage, heat pump, boiler, solar collector, PV-cells, air handling unit, water and air distribution systems. This will allow you to develop skills to catch the complexity of such HVAC systems and to understand the basic rules of how to control them to get the best out of them and how to use data from the Building Energy Management System to help you in this task.

This course is part of the PCP Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems. In the other courses in this program you can learn how to design buildings with low energy demand, how to choose low carbon energy supply and how to determine if this will lead to a comfortable indoor environment.

The development of this course is supported by Climate-KIC.

What you'll learn

• How air is processed in an air handling unit, and how to distribute it to ensure thermal comfort.
• How to distribute heat and cold with an air system, and what the associated pressure losses are.
• How to distribute heat and cold by using a water system or a mixed air-water system.
• What temperature levels to choose in both types of systems, taking into account efficiency and thermal comfort.
• How to make complex combinations of (renewable) energy equipment manageable and controllable.