Leading by Example, Saving Energy and Taxpayer Dollars. Using CO2 Sensors in Federal Facilities Preventing Energy Losses from Over-Ventilation While Maintaining Indoor Air Quality.

摘要

Demand-controlled ventilation (DCV) using carbon dioxide (CO2) sensing is a combination of two technologies: CO2 sensors that monitor CO2 levels in the air inside a building, and an air-handling system that uses data from the sensors to regulate the amount of ventilation air admitted. CO2 sensors continually monitor the air in a conditioned space. Given a predictable activity level, such as might occur in an office, people will exhale CO2 at a predictable level. Thus CO2 production in the space will very closely track occupancy. Outside CO2 levels are typically at low concentrations of around 400 to 450 ppm. Given these two characteristics of CO2, an indoor CO2 measurement can be used to measure and control the amount of outside air at a low CO2 concentration that is being introduced to dilute the CO2 generated by building occupants. The result is that ventilation rates can be measured and controlled to a specific cfm/person based on actual occupancy. This is in contrast to the traditional method of ventilating at a fixed rate regardless of occupancy.