FREEHEAT: Revolutionising the viability of natural ventilation through heat recovery

“Free Running Building Limited的目标是首个具成本效益的高效能热回收被动通风系统，目的是大幅减少公共建筑物(即学校、医疗设施和康乐中心)因未能维持可接受的二氧化碳、污染物/过敏原和温度水平而达到室内空气质素的立法要求所需的能源、二氧化碳和成本负担。”要让这些建筑充分通风，需要每6-10分钟对内部空气进行一次全面的刷新，现有的通风和供暖方法产生了这些部门60%以上的能源使用和运行成本。为了满足当前技术(如空调或机械通风系统)对能源和成本的巨大需求，基于风塔的被动通风正在得到越来越多的采用。然而，当室外天气低于舒适的环境温度时，需要不断和迅速地提高入口空气温度，这在许多市场地区刺激了大量的空间供暖需求。这一要求从根本上限制了这种方法在许多情况下的零能运行窗口和相应的可行性。作为回应，并与谢菲尔德大学(建筑能源集团和先进制造研究中心)合作，自由运行建筑现在的目标是进一步开发其风动被动通风和热交换的核心技术，以实现FREEHEAT。以5摄氏度的热增益为目标，使用新颖的热管设计和配置来捕获废气能量和预热入口空气，以实现被动热回收效率和系统重量的阶梯变化，将这项技术集成到他们专有的模块化平板组件中，还催化了现有被动通风系统的新改装能力。“

"Free Running Buildings Limited targets the first cost-effective high-performance passive ventilation system with heat recovery, with the aim of radically reducing the energy, carbon dioxide and cost-burden of achieving legislative requirements for indoor-air-quality in public-sector buildings: namely schools, healthcare facilities and leisure centres.Health, performance and productivity of occupants in these buildings is significantly impacted by failure to maintain acceptable levels of carbon dioxide, pollutant/allergens and temperature. Adequately ventilating these buildings requires the inside-air to be fully refreshed every 6-10 minutes, with existing approaches to ventilation and heating yielding over 60% of energy-use and running-costs in these sectors.To address the huge energy and cost-demands of current technologies such as air-conditioning or mechanical ventilation systems, adoption of wind-tower-based passive ventilation is growing. However, the requirement to constantly and rapidly raise the inlet air temperature, when the weather outside is below a comfortable ambient temperature, stimulates a significant space-heating requirement in many market territories. This requirement fundamentally restricts the zero-energy operating window and corresponding viability of this approach in many scenarios.In response, and working collaboratively with the University of Sheffield (Building Energy Group and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre), Free Running Buildings now aims to further develop their core technologies for wind-driven passive ventilation and heat-exchange to realise FREEHEAT. Targeting a 5-degree Celsius thermal gain using novel heat pipe designs and configurations to capture exhaust energy and pre-heat inlet air to realise a step-change in passive heat-recovery-efficiency and system weight, integrating this technology into their proprietary modular flat-pack assembly also catalyses new retrofit capability for existing passive ventilation systems."