enVerid Leads New Class of AHR Innovation Award Winners

We knew him when! Yes, Dr. Udi Meirav, CEO and founder of enVerid Systems Inc., was one of the first industry leaders I met after joining HPAC Engineering in the fall of 2017. Exhibiting at Greenbuild in Boston, Dr. Meirav agreed to share some of his thought leadership with us for our annual 'What's New, What's Next' forecast article in January 2018.

A year later, his IAQ specialty firm is the toast of this year's AHR Expo in Atlanta, winning '2019 Product of the Year' for its indoor air scrubber, the (B1061) HVAC Load Reduction® (HLR) module 1000E-M. Speaking at AHR Expo's Innovation Awards ceremony Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Meirav was both humbled and thrilled by the honor. “We are trying to bring something very new that is different, and acquiring the confidence and the support of the industry is the Number 1 issue for us," he explained. "That’s really the most important thing to happen for us to really get this innovation out there to the world.”

The indoor air scrubber module is designed to lower energy wastage from HVAC systems. It reduces the amount of outdoor air needed for ventilation by 60% to 80%, resulting in increased energy efficiency and annual energy savings of 20% to 30% with peak capacity reductions of 10 to 20 tons per HLR® 1000E-M module.

The product fully complies with the Indoor Air Quality Procedure (IAQP) of ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.1, Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, and the International Mechanical Code (IMC).

The first-of-its-kind solution safely removes all molecular contaminants, including carbon dioxide (CO2), formaldehyde and a full range of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from indoor air.

Meirav said the product is more than air cooling technology. He said it represents an idea that buildings can be managed as self-sustaining closed systems that do not rely on outdoor air for its air quality.

“That unleashes a whole set of benefits including energy and money savings but also better air quality,” he said. “These things have not been available to anybody. If you’re in a polluted city, there’s no way to provide good air quality to the occupants of your building if you’re relying on outside air to flush out indoor contaminants. This is a really fundamental shift.”

Meirav said enVerid’s next step is to develop more variations of this product to increase the number of settings and types of buildings where it can be used while continuing to improve the product’s mechanical design.

All-Star Gathering Honors Top 10

This week, representatives of 10 winning firms gathered to culminate a process that started last fall, when their products were selected by a panel of third-party ASHRAE member judges who had deemed them most innovative. Each were named Innovation Awards Winners and then competed to be named the Product of the Year.

Winners are named in the following categories: building automation, cooling, green building, heating, indoor air quality, plumbing, refrigeration, software, tools and instruments and ventilation.

This year’s companies with winning products are:

• Automated Logic Corporation (Building Automation);
• Johnson Controls, Inc. (Cooling);
• enVerid Systems (Green Building);
• Regal (Heating);
• CPS Products, Inc. (Indoor Air Quality);
• Anvil International (Plumbing);
• Emerson (Refrigeration);
• Taco Comfort Solutions (Software);
• Dwyer Instruments, Inc. (Tools & Instruments); and
• Energy Wall, LLC (Ventilation).