Painting green: Design and analysis of an environmentally and energetically conscious paint booth HVAC control system

Paint booths in the automotive industry require conditioned air to achieve desired product finish quality. The large amount of conditioned air required to operate a paint booth results in large amounts of energy consumption. This paper presents an analysis of the energy consumption of a paint booth and gives a means of reducing this consumption by designing and implementing a novel control strategy. This proposed strategy is expected to decrease the plant´s HVAC utility costs by more than a fifth, and reduce its annual carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas combustion by roughly a quarter.