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Thursday, March 28, 2024
NEWS  |  CAMPUS

Pugh Hall’s UF-designed air control system cuts emissions

A UF-developed system installed in Pugh Hall last year has proved to be a breath of fresh air for sustainability on campus.

Recent data shows that the air conditioning regulation system, activated in April 2013, cut the building’s utility bill by 40 percent.

Prabir Barooah, a UF associate mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, worked with a research team for four years to develop the system.

Barooah said they developed wireless sensors that measure temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration and room occupancy and transmit that data to a computer server.

“The software looks at, in real time, what’s happening in the room, and based on whether the room is occupied or not, based on whether it’s too hot, based on all that information, it decides what to do about the air flow rate and the heating and cooling in the room,” Barooah said.

He said the team is now working with the Physical Plant Division to install the system in two more buildings on campus. Barooah said the system could be especially useful in older buildings.

“There are all these existing buildings that are inefficient, and we can retrofit this technology on them, and that’ll save energy,” he said.

He said sensors cost about $200 each. A building like Pugh Hall would need about 70 sensors.

Jonathan Brooks, a UF mechanical engineering Ph.D. student who worked on the team, said 75 percent of all energy use comes from buildings.

“The entire industry is kind of in its infancy, so this is right on the edge of figuring out how to make it commercialized and profitable,” Brooks said.

Matthew Williams, the director of UF’s Office of Sustainability, said sensors could be valuable in reducing utility costs and greenhouse gas emissions on campus.

“That project in particular is really interesting because it shows how we could be using the expertise here on campus to solve campus needs,” he said.

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[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 4/7/2014 under the headline "Pugh Hall’s UF-designed air control system cuts emissions"]

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