Membrane-based energy recovery ventilators: A solution to heat recovery for ventilation air in Hong Kong

A novel heat recovery ventilator, the membrane-based energy recovery ventilator (MERV) that uses water-permeable hydrophilic membranes to transmit moisture, is developed to save the energy for conditioning ventilation air. The yearly performance of a MERV in Hong Kong is carried out by hour-by-hour calculations. It is disclosed that in hot and humid regions like Hong Kong, about 58% of the energy required for conditioning fresh air could be saved with a MERV annually, which recovers both latent and sensible energy; while only about 10% of the energy could be saved with a traditional sensible only energy recovery ventilator (SERV). Compared to the annual cooling load, the energy saving for fresh air with a MERV Is 12.1%, about 5–6 times higher than that with a traditional SERV.