Completed in August 2012, this was one of the earliest projects to benefit from the Carbon Management fund.
When the Chemistry Building was constructed in 2000, it was equipped with a state-of-the-art Variable Air Volume (VAV) fume cupboard extract system. This system consists of a series of cupboards which extract fumes that are released during some laboratory experiments.
This project improved the efficiency of the system by automatically reducing the running speed of the extraction fans when the fume cupboards were not in use. The discharge rate of extracted fumes was also modelled in a wind tunnel to determine the optimal discharge rate under differing wind speeds and directions. The collected data was built into the Building Energy Management System (BEMS), which was configured to use the minimum fan speed that ensured good fume dispersal under all weather conditions.
The project resulted in an annual saving of 430,000kWh, £47,000 and 180 tonnes/CO 2 .