Domestic technical textiles Industry Segment-wise consumption of ...

The type of filter used varies with each manufacturer. Most of the air conditioners use pre filters. The
manufacturers have to balance the conflicting objectives of minimizing the power consumption and
maintaining the air quality.
Centralized air conditioners
The demand for centralized air conditioning is derived from various commercial and industrial
buildings .Not much attention is given to the quality of air in most cases; cost minimization is the
primary goal and hence pre filters are used. HEPA and microvee filters find application in Pharma &
Electronics industries, nuclear installations, and hospitals etc where the quality of air is critical.
In a centralized air conditioner the filters are housed in the Air handling unit. An air handler, or air
handling unit (often abbreviated as AHU), is a device used to condition and circulate air as part of a
heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system. Usually, an air handler is a large metal box
containing a blower, heating and/or cooling elements filter racks or chambers, sound attenuators, and
dampers. Air handlers usually connect to ductwork that distributes the conditioned air through the
building, and returns it to the AHU. The AHU can have different combinations of pre filter, medium
and high efficiency filters .The pre filters remove the large sized particles hence the higher efficiency
filter is subject to lesser load.
Air conditioning products are now considered more as a necessity rather than a luxury. The rising
disposable incomes and awareness among the people of the respiratory diseases, allergies etc indicate
a huge potential for the industry.
Market size of HVAC filters and future forecast
HVAC filters are used in split and window type air conditioners as well as centralized air
conditioning. The requirement of filter media for split/window type air conditioners varies from
manufacturer to manufacturer and this media is generally washable. As per industry sources
approximately 2 million air conditioners were manufactured in 2007-08. Considering an average
requirement of 0.35 square metres of filter media per air conditioner the demand for HVAC filters for
split/window type air conditioners is estimated at 0.7 million square meters valued at Rs 6 crore.
Based on trends over last few years the demand of air conditioners is estimated to grow at 15 % per
annum which functions as a key driver for growth in HVAC filters. Thus, the market size is estimated
to increase to 1.5 million square meters by 2012-13. The market potential in 2012-13 is estimated to
be Rs 15 crore. An inflationary increase of 5% has also been considered to estimate the market size.
The requirement of filter media for centralized air conditioning is dependent on various factors like
desired quality of air, air flow rate, number of air handling units etc. The replacement demand of
throw away type filters depends on the quality of air handled. The filters are available in different