Software accurately models ‘real-world’ performance

A software system which helps heating and cooling system designers make more accurate engineering calculations using ‘dynamic simulation’ to show how their installation will perform under ‘real-world’ conditions has enabled the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust to arrive at an engineering solution which should reduce the annual carbon footprint of one of its key clinical buildings by 16 per cent, and cut its energy costs by 21 per cent, with payback in around five years. The Trust has been considering installing a heat pump for the Cardigan Building at Southend Hospital, but the Hysopt software’s modelling suggested that a more effective, and considerably less costly, first step, would be to optimise the building’s existing hot water and cooling systems’ operation – by replacing and reconfiguring key components, and switching from constant to variable flow heating. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports.

Hysopt is a spin-off from the University of Antwerp, and the Hysopt software recently deployed at Southend Hospital was developed – ‘based on years of research’ – to enable engineers designing new, or reconfiguring existing, HVAC installations to optimise HVAC installation performance ‘on a large scale’. Hysopt explains that the software – already deployed on over 150 ‘large-scale’ heating and cooling projects – is designed to enable building owners and heat network operators to reduce their energy consumption, carbon footprint, and maintenance costs, ‘by hydraulically optimising the heating and cooling system down to the finest level of detail’.

There are four key stages: