The Energy - HVAC and AHR Story

This is a momentus year for the GridWise Architecture Council and its’ role within the AHR Expo. For the first time, GridWise is an Endorsing organization and there will be an educational session at 11:00 AM on January 30, 2007 during the show.

For many there still may be some confusion about GridWise and how this topic and initiative are aligned with buildings and Heating Ventilating and Air Condtioning (HVAC). The GridWise premise is that information technology (IT) will revolutionize operation of the power grid, along with refrigeration and HVAC systems that depend on it, just as it has changed business, education and entertainment. Information technology will form the “nervous system” that integrates new distributed technologies—building automation for demand response, on-site power generation / cooling and thermal storage—with traditional grid generation, transmission and distribution assets. Responsibility to manage the grid will be shared by a “society” of devices, entities and Web Services. This as like eBay for energy, with customers deciding how much they will pay for HVAC based upon availability and cost of power. This piece is intended to provide a simple bulletized overview of this topic so that readers will be able to understand the importance of this topic to the buildings and HVAC industry and make time to join us at the educational session.

GridWise – The Need

• Electricity and HVAC are mutually dependent, in fact refrigeration and HVAC do not operate without power

• Electricity is critical to both HVAC and the economy but its’ reliability is at risk

• GridWise is about leveraging technology to keep refrigeration & HVAC running reliably and at the lowest cost

• Electric utilities must spend $450 billion on power plants and infrastructure to meet a 40% projected increase in electricity demand by 2025. Much of that demand will be for cooling including for buildings along with the massive demand to cool data centers for Information Technology (IT) and Internet.

HVAC / IT / Electricity Connection

• Servers are being distributed throughout buildings and for every KW that servers demand It takes 1.5 KW to cool those servers.

• The GridWise Architecture Council was created in 2004, after the August, 2003 Northeast Blackout, in response to Congress and the Department of Energy’s call for a next-generation “smart” electric system. It will leverage much of the work that has been done with building automation and smart buildings

• This GridWise Council is working to bring information technology advancements to electric system operations to enable the interoperability necessary to transform electric power operations into a system that enhances all energy consuming systems including HVAC, which makes up 50+% of the energy consumed in buildings.

• GridWise will use IT to facilitate intelligent, interoperable demand-side or customer resources (HVAC Controls, thermal storage, combined heat & power, etc.) to improve electric reliability over the coming decades

HVAC Alignment

• GridWise Council members represent a broad spectrum of perspectives from the HVAC industry including building and industrial controls

• GridWise will create a technology-based clean energy focus for the buildings and IT industry and address the critical requirement for electricity in providing HVAC

• GridWise is focused on deployment of creative approaches to HVAC including Automated Demand Response with HVAC, Thermal Storage for HVAC and Combined Heat and Power based cooling using absorption chillers.

• Energy leadership for the HVAC / R industry can be achieved by accepting the GridWise endorsement and leveraging the power of the AHR industry to meet the future challenge of growing energy demand by optimizing HVAC performance.

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