Hitherto performed studies have not considered personalized ventilation as the only ventilation system operating in the room when combined with radiant cooling. Personalized ventilation ensures convective cooling to the upper body parts of occupants, which can be controlled according to their individual preferences. Thus combining it with chilled ceiling should be in addition to improved perceived air quality also an effective way to improve thermal comfort in rooms at temperature higher than the upper limit of 26 C recommended in the standards [25]. It has been reported that increasing the maximum allowed air temperature in the room and implementing personalized ventilation system together with mixing ventilation may be an effective energy-saving strategy [26]. It may be expected that under certain operating conditions combining chilled ceiling with personalized ventilation instead of mixing ventilation will also lead to reduction of the energy consumption. Moreover, change in air distribution strategy from total volume air distribution to localized air distribution should bring benefits in improving perceived air quality at workstations.
The proposed combined system of chilled ceiling and personalized ventilation is novel and its performance needs to be studied.