The Future of HVAC 2013 conference to investigate ideas and innovations

AIRAH’s The Future of HVAC conference, to be held at Docklands, Melbourne, 13-14 August, will investigate the changes, ideas and innovations that are helping to shape the HVAC&R industry, and therefore the built environment.

Renowned architect Donald Bates and Energy Efficiency Council CEO Rob Murray-Leach will keynote the conference.

The conference program will cover a diverse raft of topics, touching on everything from climate change to phase change, from BIM to integrated design and indoor environment quality.

Craig Roussac, who is CEO of Buildings Alive, will discuss the trade-off between energy use and comfort, and why the concept is misguided. “Ultimately, you can’t have it all,” Roussac says. “You can’t change the laws of physics; HVAC systems need to perform work in order to maintain thermal environments.

Roussac says we need to think carefully about what the HVAC industry is trying to achieve. “If we want to make people happier and more comfortable, more tightly controlled thermal environments may not be the way to achieve it.”

Digital Realty’s Damien Spillane, M.AIRAH, will discuss the advantages of cooling data centres with ‘free’ air. “My presentation is about the evolution of cooling within the data centre environment and how this ongoing change has allowed innovation and highly efficient solutions to be delivered in mission-critical facilities,” Spillane says.

To find out more about the conference, or to register, go to www.airah.org.au/TheFutureofHVAC.