British Columbia’s “DiscoveryGreen” Becomes First Large-Scale North American Building to Use VRF HVAC System

The march of technological innovation and evolution in the HVAC market continues, this time in British Columbia, where the “DiscoveryGreen” project, located in the city of Burnaby, is taking a bold step by becoming the first building in North America to use VRF HVAC. This technology has already been widely adopted in Europe and Japan but has remained largely shut out of the North American market.

If you don’t know about VRF, you can begin to get an education by learning that the initials stand for “variable refrigerant flow.” The technology has been the subject of much discussion in the U.S. and the rest of North America on both an informal level, as in the conversation about it at the hvac-talk discussion forum, and a more formal level, as in a concise summary of the technology from the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA):

There’s a new HVAC technology in town that’s turning some heads. It’s easy to retrofit to existing buildings — even historical buildings without existing ductwork. It can move heat from warmer parts of the building to cooler parts; it provides very good part-load performance; it can limit conditioning to only those rooms that are occupied; and it may cut energy costs. This new technology is most commonly known as variable refrigerant flow (VRF). It’s an outgrowth of the “multi-split” systems used in residential applications.

VRF equipment manufacturers include Mitsubishi, Daikin, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Hitachi, LG and Samsung. VRF systems are most popular in Asia and are established in Europe, but are gaining a foothold in the United States. These systems combine one or more centralized, variable-speed, air-cooled compressors and condensers connected to dozens of terminal (fan coil) units throughout a building, each of which can act as an economizer or an evaporator, as needed, to provide heating and cooling. Electric resistance coils provide additional heating and defrost cycles during the coldest weather (“Technology Spotlight: Heating and cooling with VRF systems“).

(Note that the WAPA page also contains an excellent two-column chart that compares VRF systems with traditional HVAC systems.)

In 2007 ASHRAE Journal featured an article titled “Variable Refrigerant Flow Systems,” now available as a freely downloadable PDF, that started by saying,

Variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems, which were introduced in Japan more than 20 years ago, have become popular in many countries, yet they are relatively unknown in the United States. The technology has gradually expanded its market presence, reaching European markets in 1987, and steadily gaining market share throughout the world. In Japan, VRF systems are used in approximately 50% of medium-sized commercial buildings (up to 70,000 ft2 [6500 m2]) and one-third of large commercial buildings (more than 70,000 ft2 [6500 m2]).

These two years later, Burnaby’s DiscoveryGreen is becoming the first North American building to introduce a VRF system on a large scale.

As reported by the Vancouver Sun on February 14 (“‘Discovery Green’ building takes the LEED in environment“), DiscoveryGreen

is the final building at Discovery Place, a 32-hectare business park that was created in the 1979 by the provincial government as a venue for high-tech research and development.

The entire venture now operates as Discovery Parks Trust. It has expanded to the campuses of University of B.C., Simon Fraser University and University of Victoria, and has so far generated $12 million in research funds for those institutions.

The official Webpage for the DiscoveryGreen Building, located at the wider site for Discovery Place, says the property “occupies the last site in Discovery Place Research Park to be completed April 2009. We have saved the best for last with our most sustainable building ever. This building design will ensure that your company and your employees can grow and prosper in the most healthy and efficient design possible.”

The Vancouver Sun story gives some of the details on the VRF HVAC system, which are among the features that will qualify the building to receive LEED gold status. The story also highlights the controversy that has surrounded the attempted entry of VRF technology into the North American market:

[The building’s proponents ] have come up with a “flagship” design that will attract scrutiny from across North America.

. . . . DiscoveryGreen will be the fourth largest LEED gold building in B.C., and the largest single building in Canada to be built to LEED gold standards from the ground up as a commercial enterprise.

. . . . It will also be the first large-scale introduction in North America of an indoor air quality system that uses “VRF” technology in lieu of conventional water-based heating and cooling systems.

VRF is not without controversy, at least in the climate-control industry.

It has been widely adopted in Japan and Europe, but Trane, North America’s leading installer of building control systems, has opted to stay with mainstream technology that relies on piped water, rather than VRF’s piped refrigerant, to circulate heat and cooling around a building.

Trane Western Canada regional manager Peter Hoemberg, who is not involved with the project, believes VRF works better in theory than practice.

But he notes that whether you use VRF or a modern chiller, you will save enough energy to qualify for LEED.

Both systems rely on electricity-driven heat pumps rather than gas-fired boilers, so the only carbon dioxide emissions will be the ones generated when the occupants of the building exhale.

As for us here at Just Venting, we’re just interested to be witnessing the epic and ongoing evolution of our market in this age of rapid transformation.