Finalists have been announced for the annual Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heating (AIRAH) Awards.
The awards will be presented at a presentation dinner in Brisbane on November 8, 2012.
AIRAH CEO Phil Wilkinson, said award categories and nomination criteria were tweaked this year to simplify the entry procedure while maintaining the highest of standards.
“We had a fantastic response. I know the judges had a tough time winnowing out the various categories," he said.
Finalists for the best HVAC or refrigeration retrofit/upgrade are: Scantec for Logan City Council project; Scantec for Castlemain Perkins Brewery and; GHD for 4 Mort Street, Canberra.
Finalists for the excellence in innovation category are: Air Change (ACDHUM) - Air Change dehumidification unit; ebm-papst - EC Radical centrigual fan series; Innotech - ATOM software application; Ziehl-Abegg - ZA Plus; Actron Air - Tri-Capacity.
There are three finalists for the future leader category including Dhvanit Shah, Jessica Holz and Rob Simic.
Ramadas Narayanan and Sonia Holzheimer are finalists for student of the year.
For excellence in sustainability, the finalists are: AG Coombs – HVAC energy optimisation project at 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney; Arup – MLC Centre GPT workplace project; NDY – Melbourne Water Data Centre; ebm-papst for energy-saving fans (ESM) made from biomaterial; Realcold for its Gold Coast Stadium project.
Another highly competitive category this year is the excellence in HVAC and refrigeration research.
Finalist are Dr Frank Bruno, Dr Martin Belusko and Mr Steven Tay of the University of South Australia for High-performing low-cost thermal storage with phase-change materials and Dr Richard de Dear, University of Sydney for The Indoor Environmental Quality Laboratory (IEQ Lab).
Finalists in the Denis Joseph Award for Innovative Use of Solar Energy in HVAC and Refrigeration are: CSIRO/TAFE NSW Hunter Institute - Two-rotor solar desiccant air conditioning system; The Research School of Engineering, The Australian National University – CoolSolar; Medland Metropolis – GCI Headquarters at the University of Queensland.
