FREEHEAT: Revolutionising the viability of natural ventilation through heat recovery

“自由运行建筑有限公司的目标是第一个具有成本效益的高性能被动通风系统与热回收，目的是从根本上减少能源，二氧化碳和成本负担，以达到立法要求的室内空气质量的公共部门建筑：即学校、保健设施和休闲中心。这些建筑物中的居住者的表现和生产力由于不能保持可接受的二氧化碳、污染物/过敏原和温度水平而受到显著影响。这些建筑物的被动通风需要每6-10分钟对内部空气进行一次完全更新，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。为了解决当前技术（如空调或机械通风系统）的巨大能源和成本需求，基于风塔的被动通风的采用正在增长。然而，当外面的天气低于舒适的环境温度时，持续且快速地升高入口空气温度的要求在许多市场区域中刺激了显著的空间加热要求。这一要求从根本上限制了零能耗运行窗口和这种方法在许多情况下的相应可行性。作为回应，自由运行建筑与谢菲尔德大学（建筑能源集团和先进制造研究中心）合作，现在旨在进一步开发其风力驱动被动通风和热交换的核心技术，以实现FREEHEAT。利用新型热管设计和配置捕获废气能量并预热进气，以实现5摄氏度的热增益为目标，实现被动热回收效率和系统重量的阶跃变化，将该技术集成到其专有的模块化扁平封装组件中，也促进了现有被动通风系统的新改造能力。"

"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."