L to R: Markus Lattner; Michel Farah, Director – Corporate Environmental and Social Responsibility at Daikin Middle East and Africa; Eric Melquiond; Sagar Kulkarni, Managing Director at Consistent Electro-Mechanical Engineering Consultants; Gary Williams, Director of Commissioning at AESG & B Surendar, Editorial Director at Climate Control Middle East

September 28, 2017, Dubai, UAE: Eurovent Middle East on September 25 reiterated its commitment to the cause of energy efficiency, indoor air quality (IAQ), process cooling and food cold chain during an event to launch its ‘HVACR Consultant Leadership Workshops’, in Dubai. Addressing a gathering largely comprising HVACR manufacturers and consultants, the organisation announced its vision and framework for engaging various stakeholders in the building industry, among others.

Morten Schmelzer, Director, Business Development and Strategic Relations and Team Leader, Indoor Climate, Eurovent, while making a presentation, titled ‘HVACR 2030: Where is our sector headed towards?’ drew upon the underlying principles behind the EU 2030 Framework and the Dubai Integrated Energy Strategy 2030. He said it was upon the industry to ask itself how to make the strategies a reality. The core issues facing the industry, he added, were energy efficiency, maintenance and durability, refrigerants and IAQ.

Brian Suggitt

Then, pointing out to the fact that the HVAC industry uses 58% of Dubai’s annual power, he called for the need for significant improvement in HVAC O&M, among other actions. Schmelzer said the European Union (EU) and the UAE faced similar obstacles when it came to achieving energy efficiency- and broad building performance-related goals. He enumerated them as limited market surveillance; the question over whether products, indeed, perform as their manufacturers claim, and should, or not; and the importance being given to price over quality.

He laid out the Eurovent vision on what the body sees as a roadmap to achieving greater energy efficiency by 2030. It included paying greater attention to lifecycle cost and total cost of ownership, energy performance contracting, smart monitoring and IoT. “We should not have ventilation without energy recovery,” he said. “We should focus on smart ventilation and demand control. We should increase our focus on energy-efficient air filtration. And we should look at implementing from zero-net-energy buildings up to energy-plus buildings.”

The event also featured a panel discussion, moderated by Markus Lattner, Director, Eurovent Middle

Markus Lattner

East, which focused on the importance of commissioning and highlighted the importance of a cohesive approach to project development. Later, while speaking on the sidelines, Lattner emphasised on the need for multiple stakeholders – manufacturers, consultants, contractors, developers and government authorities – to work in a close-knit manner, with trust towards one another being the bedrock of such a collaboration. Eurovent Middle East, he said, would like to foster the trust. “We want to take the lead in this,” he said. “We want to show that working together, cooperating for the benefit of all and jointly working towards higher standards and better buildings, is possible. We want to be the neutral body you can go to and get unbiased and objective information. Our members compete with one another, but they sit down with mutual respect and work together on standards and industry recommendations.”

Lattner pointed out that stake-holding was a rather new concept in the Middle East. Yet we believe it is one of the largest, unused potential this region has, he said. “Take The Consultant Contractor Conference, conducted by CPI Industry (Climate Control Middle East magazine) on September 18 and 19, or our own workshop – how much of a combined experience and expertise are we looking at, if we imagine the audience as a single big brain,” he said. “If we can manage to organise this brain and give it some targets to work on, say building codes, what would we be able to achieve. For the government, for authorities and, of course, also for investors and developers, this would provide a massive pool of information.”

The event also saw addresses and presentations by Brian Suggitt, Chairman, Eurovent Middle East and Erick Melquiond, President Eurovent Certita Certification. As a follow-up to the launch, Eurovent will be conducting a workshop on commercial refrigeration on October 30 and on evaporative cooling equipment on November 22.