6.4.5.

2 Alternative HVAC systems in

commercial buildings
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The following paragraphs describe two alternatives to conventional HVAC systems in
commercial buildings that together can reduce the HVAC system energy use by 30 to 75%. These
savings are in addition to the savings arising from reducing heating and cooling loads.
Radiant chilled-ceiling cooling

A room may be cooled by chilling a large fraction of the ceiling by circulating water through
pipes or lightweight panels. Chilled ceiling (CC) cooling has been used in Europe since at least
the mid-1970s. In Germany during the 1990s, 10% of retrofitted buildings used CC cooling
(Behne, 1999). Significant energy savings arise because of the greater effectiveness of water than
air in transporting heat and because the chilled water is supplied at 16C to 20C rather than at
5C to 7C. This allows a higher chiller COP when the chiller operates, but also allows more
frequent use of water-side free cooling, in which the chiller is bypassed altogether and water
from the cooling tower is used directly for space cooling. For example, a cooling tower alone
could directly meet the cooling requirements 97% of the time in Dublin, Ireland and 67% of the
time in Milan, Italy if the chilled water is supplied at 18C (Costelloe and Finn, 2003).
Displacement ventilation

Conventional ventilation relies on turbulent mixing to dilute room air with ventilation air. A
superior system is displacement ventilation (DV) in which air is introduced at low speed
through many diffusers in the floor or along the sides of a room and is warmed by internal heat
sources (occupants, lights, plug-in equipment) as it rises to the top of the room, displacing the air
already present. The thermodynamic advantage of displacement ventilation is that the supply air
temperature is significantly higher for the same comfort conditions (about 18oC compared with
about 13oC in a conventional mixing ventilation system). It also permits significantly smaller
airflow.
DV was first applied in northern Europe; by 1989 it had captured 50% of the Scandinavian
market for new industrial buildings and 25% for new office buildings (Zhivov and Rymkevich,
1998). The building industry in North America has been much slower to adopt DV; by the end of
the 1990s fewer than 5% of new buildings used under-floor air distribution systems (Lehrer and
Bauman, 2003). Overall, DV can reduce energy use for cooling and ventilation by 30 to 60%,
depending on the climate (Bourassa et al., 2002; Howe et al., 2003).