Controlling the climate
April 1st 2008

Research and Development is the backbone upon which the success of Priva has been built.With 15% of turnover going into product development, the commitment is there to not only develop new products that address current concerns such as energy efficiency and sustainability but also to remain competitive against the large corporate multinationals.Tim McManan-Smith spoke to Nico Berkhout, team manager at Priva's R&D department about Priva and future product developments

ico Berkhout states that the reasons for the high level of product innovation within Priva are two-fold.Firstly, there is a need to develop products that allow customers to operate in increasingly efficient and sustainable ways.And secondly, there is a business need within Priva to stay competitive."We believe in product innovation, it is through this that we are able to compete with the likes of Siemens and Honeywell."He thinks that because Priva is privately owned and smaller than the big multinationals that it is able to be more flexible and also is able to invest 15% into R&D and not only 5% that many companies do because of shareholder pressure for immediate profits.

When developing new products Nico says that "sometimes the push is from us and sometimes the pull is from the consumer". Salesmen often come to him with a wish list from the customer and it is interesting to note that the main concern with regard to building controls is climate control within a building i.e.

achieving comfort rather than being able to get a grip on energy costs.

"Developers do not care about lifetime costs and while customers do care they and have an interest in energy most of it is just talk." Sometimes the amount that can be saved is very small yet it all adds up says Nico,"We have more and more electronic products in offices and homes so we do need stuff that will save energy. If we have a controller that is 1W but there are 1000 controllers then that is 1kW every day.We can prove the energy savings are there and in general building controls save a lot of money but it is saving a little bit multiplied by lots".

"In the future there will be more distributed systems,more intelligence in individual room controllers," suggests Nico,"With this arrangement the flexibility is better.The room 'knows'better than a central system.

We should collect information locally for reporting overall."He also thinks that is is better to have wireless controllers rather than tracing into a wall.As well as ease of installation it needn't use any energy either. It could be run by solar power or a push button piezoelectric."Collecting more information at a local level from your building will help towards managing energy use within the building,"states Nico.Control strategies must also be more responsive."Smart thinking is needed by systems with adaptive control based upon inputs around you. If there is heat from the sun in the morning then why heat the room?"questions Nico,"Look at the sun with a light meter and look at the weather the day before to see if the rooms needs heating. If a room is not to be used tomorrow then stop heating it at 4pm".

As well as developing products that are use less energy Priva is keen to walk the walk themselves. It sources materials that are less damaging to the environment in addition to running its premises efficiently. Recycling is conducted in the offices, there is moss and sedum planted on the roof; to cool in the summer and insulate in the winter.

The Priva Campus is a CO2-neutral building. It is one big solar collector, the fact that the structure is so transparent means more natural light and more heat.However,some people were afraid of it overheating during the summer months.Cooling the air effectively was achieved by installing chilled ceilings instead of energy-guzzling air-conditioning systems.This system channels cool water through narrow tubes above the ceilings in the offices.The heat pump system has two separate water wells. It stores excess heat underground, and draws any cooling required from the ground. It is able to use the heat in the winter for preheating and the building has no gas consumption due to a combination of the heat exchangers and heat pumps.

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