Five green stars

This award, made by the New Zealand Green Building Council, recognised the energy efficiency inherent in the fan coil product and took account of the demand dependant local fresh air control, and the way this was managed by the integrated fan coil strategy written and applied by Ability.

Around 175 Matrix EC-DC 4-pipe, horizontal Fan Coils were supplied and co-ordinated on Ability's behalf by New Zealand agent, Clima Solutions.

Operating at a noise level specification of NR37, units have self-balancing fans, Delta BACnet DAC controls and 4-pipe Belimo PICC valves, overseen by a specially configured controls strategy and a software based ‘engineering tool' installed on a laptop. This communicates with the fan coil units via Bluetooth technology and requires just a Bluetooth receiver to be plugged into any fan coil unit in the installation. Communication with all fan coils units in the building is possible without recourse to the BMS.

Units with capacities of 0.4 to 7.0kW (cooling) and 0.5 to 8.4kW (heating) were deployed within the ceiling of the 7 accommodation floors of the building. 

The Matrix’ EC-DC fan coil system not only provides infinite speed control of the whole unit but also of each fan within it, enabling the air volume of each duct run to be balanced through fan speed alone. This removes the need for volume control dampers (VCDs) within ductwork. Matrix balances the air volume down each of the duct runs to the exact litre by controlling the fans at the correct speeds. 

Since Matrix controls its speed according to demand, a Matrix fan coil unit operating in set back mode has the potential to consume only 20% (or less) of the AC equivalent unit electrical input. These low speeds therefore not only reduce running costs considerably, they reduce project acoustic levels. 

As a safety feature, the Matrix controller monitors the off-coil air temperature such that if it gets too high or too low (user definable settings) any programmed fan speed reduction strategy is automatically overridden to pull the air-off temperature back into line.

Finally, Ability Matrix EC-DC motor systems run ‘cold’. Older AC fan coil units in fact, must provide a certain degree of cooling simply to overcome their own motor heat and this is before they begin to cool the host building. Matrix fan/motor units, for all intents and purposes eliminate this problem.