The Effects of Supply Air Temperature on Energy Usage and Thermal Comfort for VAV Systems

Motivated by the global energy crisis and poor indoor air quality in buildings generally and schools specifically, this study looks at ways to reduce energy use while insuring indoor air quality. This study discusses the effects of supply air temperature on the energy usage and thermal comfort for VAV Systems in schools, investigates their impact on the annual energy consumption, and determines the potential savings achieved in different USA locations. The study includes detailed energy analysis on a building on the campus of North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University through whole building simulation energy software. After creating building model in eQuest, the buildings were sectioned off into different air handling units and zones for more accurate data collection. Constraints such as a baseline and four other strategies related to the supply temperature settings for the system within the building were created to manipulate in order to compare to the baseline design for the current building system. Data was collected based off of a 12 month periods, with the buildings placed in 6 different locations around the United States of America as well as an hourly analysis for a year for the current location of the building for 4 different weeks. The purpose was to get data that would coincide with the areas specified thermal settings and ASHRAE climate zones as compared to the actual existing ventilation strategy. The simulations were run for 4 different strategies including the baseline. These various simulations and data collections when put to application can reduce a lot of factors within the area of building performance in the United States and possibly adopted by other countries to enhance the savings.