Burning Money
By Graham Parker | Published: 01 March, 2011
All car parks are legally required to have ventilation systems adhering to strict building regulations, which are set out to control exhaust fumes and vent smoke in the event of a fire. Over the past few years, the method of ventilating underground car parks has changed dramatically. Traditional ducted systems have been replaced by ‘jet’, ‘impulse’ or ‘induction’ systems, which use small fan units positioned around the car park to direct smoke towards an extract point.
The use of jet fans eliminates the need for distribution ductwork throughout the car park, which can help create more space and makes car parks brighter and less cluttered. However, fan-based systems installed even a few years ago are likely to be running at too high a speed and for too many hours, costing owners and operators money and generating tonnes of unnecessary carbon.
The standard method of designing air movement systems leads to larger fan motors being installed than are required, thanks to allowances built into the calculations.
It is also fairly common practice for extract fans to run continuously whether the car park is being used or not. This has resulted in a considerable waste of energy and of money in paying for that energy, with figures of £20,000pa for a single level car park. There are many such legacy systems still in existence which are fully compliant with the building regulations despite using far more electricity than required.
It is possible to make extract fan systems more efficient by installing special optimisation controls. And the good news is that all car park operators can benefit from this technology because the controls can be fitted retrospectively.
Variable speed drives can be retrofitted to most extract fans. The speed of the fan can then be adjusted to deliver the optimum performance, making savings of 20 per cent or more in energy use.
Existing systems can easily be linked to CO monitoring, enabling them to react to the level of pollution in a car park so that fans only run when pollution is present. The fan’s speed also varies according to the concentration of CO within the space, and the result is a potential reduction in energy of around 60 per cent.
Yet there remain many hundreds of car parks all across the UK that are guzzling unnecessary energy. The reason for this is easy to understand when you consider the capital investment required upfront, which is money that many companies cannot spare in these financially trying times. Quite simply, the payback period is too long.
We asked our customers across the UK what was preventing them investing in this technology, and we came up with a unique finance package which means there is no need to spend any money upfront and saving can begin immediately.
Removing the main barrier to investment in green technology means that there has never been a better time to start slashing car park energy bills while maintaining a safe environment for the staff and customers who use it.
