Aurelia Residences: Demand-Controlled Carpark Ventilation

About the project

Aurelia Residences is a high-end residential development by Shang Properties. Cobler delivered the automation for its enclosed car park ventilation (ACMV). An enclosed car park has to run mechanical ventilation continuously to keep carbon monoxide and vehicle fumes within safe limits, which makes it one of the larger always-on electrical loads in the building.

The challenge

Car park ventilation is safety equipment first. It clears carbon monoxide and other vehicle fumes, and in a fire it becomes part of the smoke-control strategy. Because the stakes are high, the simplest way to run it is to leave everything on at full speed, all the time. That is also the most wasteful. An enclosed car park's fans are a large, constant electrical load, and for most of the day the space is quiet, with air far cleaner than flat-out ventilation assumes.

The job is to back that energy off without ever compromising air quality or the fire mode. The system has to ventilate to what the air actually needs, moment to moment, and still be ready to ramp to full and switch to smoke-control duty instantly.

The solution

Cobler automated the car park's ACMV so it ventilates to demand rather than running flat out, controlling three parts of the system together:

- Fresh air intake is modulated to bring in outside air in step with demand instead of holding a fixed, maximum supply.
- Exhaust is driven by the actual air quality in the space, ramping up as vehicle activity and fume levels rise and easing back when the car park is quiet.
- Jet fans are staged and sequenced to sweep air across the deck toward the exhaust points, running only the fans needed to keep air moving where it matters rather than every fan at once.

Tied to carbon monoxide sensing across the car park, the controls run the ventilation to real air quality, while the fire and smoke-control sequences stay ready to take over the moment they are called.

The result

The car park stays clear and safe, and ventilates on demand instead of at full power around the clock, taking a continuous and easily-overlooked load off the building. For a development like Aurelia Residences, it is the kind of building automation residents never notice and the operator sees on the bill.

See how the same control approach works across other sites in our case studies, or talk to us about car park and ACMV controls for your development.