Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems are central to our daily comfort, but they also pose a significant challenge in terms of energy consumption and environmental impact.
In the face of the climate emergency, optimizing these systems is imperative, but traditional maintenance encounters obstacles: high costs, time-consuming work orders, difficult equipment access, and safety risks. This is where preventive maintenance and remote visual support come into play, offering an innovative solution to ensure the sustainability and energy efficiency of HVAC systems.
The challenges of HVAC maintenance for sustainability and energy efficiency
The environmental impact of HVAC systems
HVAC systems represent 40 to 60% of a building’s total energy consumption (source). This consumption averages 78% in residential settings (source), and for office buildings, 46% (34% for heating, 12% for air conditioning) varying depending on the building type: Haussmannian offices or those built in the 2010-2020 period (source).
While Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems are essential for the comfort of our living and working spaces, their environmental impact is far from negligible. Indeed, these systems are often large energy consumers, significantly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions.
In the face of the climate emergency, it is imperative to optimize HVAC system performance to reduce their ecological footprint. This involves innovative and effective solutions capable of limiting energy consumption while ensuring optimal comfort.
The challenges of traditional maintenance
Traditional HVAC system maintenance encounters obstacles that impact its efficiency and profitability. Work orders, often costly and time-consuming, involve team travel and significant work order delays.
Furthermore, equipment access, sometimes located at heights or in hard-to-reach areas like false ceilings, complicates operations and exposes technicians to safety risks (handling refrigerants, electrical work orders, etc.).
Moreover, this maintenance, often reactive, occurs after critical breakdowns, involving emergency repairs, and causing service interruptions and high repair costs, without anticipating equipment wear and optimizing its lifespan.
The importance of preventive maintenance
Faced with the limitations of corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance emerges as a proactive and strategic approach for HVAC system maintenance.
It involves scheduling regular and systematic work orders on equipment, such as Air Handling Units (AHUs), chillers, circulation pumps, duct networks, or terminal units (fan coil units), according to a predefined maintenance plan.
The objective is to detect and correct anomalies, such as filter clogging, refrigerant leaks, hydraulic or aerodynamic imbalance defects, or setpoint drifts, before they lead to major breakdowns, impacting thermal comfort and indoor air quality.
This approach offers numerous benefits:
- Breakdown Reduction: Anticipating malfunctions and reducing emergency repair work orders.
- Equipment Longevity: Regular maintenance to optimize performance and defer renewal investments.
- Cost Optimization: Long-term expense reduction by avoiding costly repairs and energy overconsumption.
- Enhanced Safety: Periodic checks of safety devices to ensure occupant and technician safety.
- Energy Performance: Optimal equipment operation to reduce energy consumption and contribute to building energy performance goals.
Remote visual support: an innovative solution for HVAC maintenance
Remote diagnosis
For example, an on-site technician notices a malfunction in a chiller that is no longer maintaining the setpoint temperature.
Thanks to remote visual support, an expert connects remotely. The technician uses their smartphone to transmit live images of the control panel, pressure gauges, and internal chiller components. The expert analyzes the data, identifies a pressure sensor fault, and guides the technician to perform a diagnostic test, confirming the problem.
This avoids the costly travel of an expert and allows for rapid ordering of potential spare parts.
Technician guidance for complex work orders
A maintenance team needs to replace a complex control valve on a chilled water distribution network.
Thanks to remote visual support, a hydraulics expert remotely assists the team. They visualize the work order steps in real-time, provide precise instructions, and share technical diagrams on the technician’s screen. They ensure the assembly is correct, tightening torques are respected, and the system is properly purged.
This ensures the quality of the work order and reduces the risk of leaks or subsequent malfunctions.
Real-time training and technical support
A new technician needs to perform preventive maintenance on an Air Handling Unit (AHU) equipped with a complex control system.
Thanks to their field service management software, the technician can access technical documents related to the equipment, maintenance contract clauses, work orders histories, and previously recorded video exchanges. In addition, an experienced trainer can remotely assist them to:
- Explain the procedures to follow, the control points to check, and the adjustments to make.
- Show them how to interpret operating data and how to use the control interface.
Thus, the technician quickly gains autonomy and skills.
Sustainability and energy efficiency: the concrete benefits of remote visual support for HVAC
Optimization of HVAC system performance
Remote visual support plays a crucial role in improving the sustainability and energy efficiency of HVAC systems. By enabling precise and rapid diagnostics of anomalies, it helps optimize system performance and ensure optimal operation.
It also helps reduce energy waste, extend equipment lifespan, and minimize the environmental impact of HVAC systems.
Extending equipment lifespan
Extending the lifespan of HVAC equipment is a major challenge, both economically and environmentally. Remote visual support, by facilitating effective preventive maintenance, plays a crucial role in this objective.
Thanks to remote visual support, technicians can perform detailed visual inspections, functional checks, and remote preventive maintenance work orders. This allows for the detection and correction of minor anomalies before they turn into major breakdowns. Experts can also guide on-site technicians to perform complex maintenance operations, ensuring their proper execution.
This proactive approach significantly reduces the risk of breakdowns and premature equipment replacement. HVAC equipment, such as chillers, air handling units, or circulation pumps, are significant investments. Their early replacement leads to high costs and a significant environmental impact. Remote visual support thus helps optimize the lifespan of this equipment, reduce replacement costs, and limit the environmental footprint of buildings.
Contribution to reducing the environmental footprint
Remote visual assistance is a major lever for reducing the environmental footprint of HVAC systems, acting on several levels. Firstly, it allows for the optimization of equipment performance, resulting in a direct reduction in energy consumption. Indeed, more precise diagnostics and refined adjustments avoid unnecessary overconsumption, thus reducing CO2 emissions associated with energy production.
Secondly, remote visual support promotes a more responsible and sustainable maintenance approach. By limiting technician travel, it helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to transport. In addition, it extends the lifespan of equipment, avoiding premature replacements that require the production of new materials.
Finally, remote visual support can be a tool for raising awareness and training on environmental best practices. By sharing information and advice in real time, experts can encourage technicians to adopt more environmentally friendly behaviors during their work orders.
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