Facing the mouth of technological revolutions in several industries, the HVAC sector is certainly not an exception. The integration of Technological Artificial Intelligence (AI) to HVAC systems will be a revolution for this industry. As an engineer who studies this field, I will show you how AI is contributing to HVAC and what you can expect from HVAC systems in the future.
Intelligent Climate Control
Perhaps one of the most immediate advantages of AI in the sphere of HVAC is intelligent climate control. An AI system that has been programmed with mathematical algorithms can modify its internal systems of operation in accordance with a plethora of data that it can receive from outdoor weather conditions, indoor air temperature preferences and even the number of occupants in a room. The AI can then take those inputs and initiate automatic actions to ensure occupant comfort as determined by the AI algorithms in its system while also minimizing the use of energy. In addition to enabling more comfortable occupant situations, smart thermostats can also lead to dramatically reduced energy bills.
Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance is another lasting change that’s coming in terms of AI’s impact. HVAC systems are taken offline for checks on a regular timetable or when somebody notices that a component might be performing below expectations. But timetables aren’t built to capture breakdowns, and so preventative maintenance can be highly inefficient. AI can keep a system running at peak performance or even predict when a component will fail before it actually does. This can prevent the unexpected shutdowns and false alarms that come with the need to take a maintenance timetable and sweep it under the rug. In the process, it extends the life of the system, and offers a huge cost savings over the emergency repairs required to preserve a maintenance timetable.
Energy Efficiency and Sustainability
The real-time ability of AI to understand energy use and maximize its efficiency will apply to HVAC. If an AI understands use patterns and environmental conditions where a system is operating, it will be able to adjust the operation of systems to maximize efficiency. Furthermore, imagine if an HVAC system could adjust its operation to when wind or solar energy are abundant. An AI could integrate with renewable energy sources, adjusting HVAC operations when solar energy or wind are sufficient to reduce reliance on non-renewable energy sources.
Enhanced Indoor Air Quality
The issue of indoor air quality has emerged as a major concern, as well. AI-enabled HVAC systems can be programmed to monitor air quality parameters such as CO2 levels, humidity and pollutant levels, and then autonomously adjust air filtration and ventilation accordingly.
Integration with Smart Home Ecosystems
And as businesses get smarter, HVAC systems are increasingly not working in isolation. AI can also integrate seamlessly with other smart devices to make a business a more integrated (and intelligent) working environment. For instance, AI can link an HVAC system to smart windows and blinds and, in the process, control the amount of natural heating or cooling from the outside, thereby further optimizing energy use and business comforts.
The Road Ahead
What we have dipped our toes into is far from the limits of what AI can do in the HVAC domain. Who knows what the future holds? Adaptive machine learning models to predict weather patterns and derive HVAC performance from them? AI guided HVAC design tools to optimize the architecture of an HVAC system for a certain building type?
As work in this field continues to evolve, collaboration between AI developers and HVAC end users will be paramount in ensuring that such systems are not only intelligent, but as intuitive as possible to use. The advent of AI embedded into HVAC is about more than just optimizing system performance; it’s about fundamentally altering the way we manage and experience spaces in which we live and work.
To conclude, I believe that artificial intelligence will shape the future of HVAC. By applying artificial intelligence, we can improve efficiency and comfort, lower carbon footprint and temperature and increase the level of improvement in the HVAC sector. This new advancement in HVAC will ensure higher levels of heating and cooling, and enable the air conditioning industry to grow into the future. As a sales manager at Burban Air Systems Ltd., I look forward to be part of this new, exciting and creative era, always searching for innovative and improving solutions both for our clients' needs and our environment.