Self-adaptive dynamic indoor climate control for museums, archives and libraries. Vast energy savings at Hermitage Amsterdam museum

Abstract

The indoor climate in museums usually is conditioned strictly to the “golden standard” of 21˚C and 50%RH. It is evident that strict climate control hinders sustainability targets, but also hinders a robust long-term preservation practice. Research at Eindhoven University of Technology (2012-2017) has yielded the concept of dynamic indoor climate control for heritage institutions and its energy saving potential has been validated rigorously. In 2019, the spin-off DYSECO further developed this concept to a control-module that can communicate with any type of Building Management System. The algorithm of the controller calculates optimal adjustments to setpoints for temperature and RH adhering to the boundary conditions set by the user, considering limits and permissible rates of change of temperature and RH. The Hermitage Amsterdam museum has played a vital role in the research and development since 2014 and employs the DYSECO control solution in all exhibition spaces since 2020. Energy data is presented based on 5 years of high-quality data acquisition. The positive effects on collection preservation due to mitigated risk under HVAC failures are demonstrated using state-of-the-art dynamic building simulations with dynamic collection damage models.