ENERGY EFFICIENT PLUG FANS: An economic alternative to centrifugal fans

摘要

Within an AHU, the component that uses the most electricity is the fan - making it the main focus where energy efficiency improvements are concerned. Centrifugal fans are commonly found in AHUs, but little has been achieved in terms of making them more efficient. With centrifugal fans there will always be inherent energy losses, because they are traditionally driven by a motor in a belt and pulley arrangement. According to CIBSE (Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers), inefficiencies can be anything from two to more than 10 per cent. Centrifugal fans can be operated as direct drive fans to eliminate belt losses but the applications are limited. The only other gain has been through moving from a forward curved to a backward curved design to improve aerodynamic efficiency.