Poppy Launches Direct Ventilation Monitoring for Continuous HVAC Savings, With No Upfront Cost and No Subscription Fee
Commercial building owners get ongoing ventilation monitoring and optimization, and Poppy is paid only from the energy savings it verifies.
Poppy today launched Direct Ventilation Monitoring (DVM), a continuous system that measures how much outdoor air reaches key zones of a commercial building and compares it to ASHRAE 62.1 targets.
Ventilation accounts for about 29% of HVAC energy in US commercial buildings, according to the US Department of Energy. Yet most buildings cannot say how much outdoor air actually reaches occupied spaces. Poppy has worked on that problem since 2019. Its early breakthrough, Real-Time Air Tracing, automated the core clean air measurement method of ASHRAE Standard 241. Salt water particles are released in the breathing zone, and the system measures how quickly each zone clears them, capturing filtration and outdoor air together.
DVM is the latest Poppy breakthrough for CRE owners and operators. Outdoor CO2 rises and falls in a natural daily cycle, and indoor levels follow with a lag set by how much outdoor air enters. DVM monitors outdoor air intake and places sensors indoors in key zones, then analyzes the delay between the outdoor and indoor cycles to determine each zone’s outdoor air rate. Outdoor CO2 is used as a natural atmospheric tracer for outdoor air, and the assessment needs no wiring or connection to building systems.
Every engagement starts with a free 2-week ventilation assessment, which owners can sign up for online at https://www.poppy.com/assessment-agreement. Buildings measured to be on or above code then can opt to proceed with ongoing Direct Ventilation Monitoring for continuous optimization and energy savings, with no subscription fee. Buildings already on target are monitored at no cost, and optimized buildings pay only a share of the savings Poppy verifies.
Where zones are over-ventilated, Poppy optimizes the settings through its world-class engineering team, and then shares the verified savings, with no retrofits and no upfront cost to the owner. Monitoring continues after optimization, and Poppy alerts the building team when ventilation runs high or low. Where zones fall short, Poppy works with the building’s engineers on the fix and verifies the result.
“Five years ago, measuring ventilation meant an engineer and a lot of assumptions. Air tracing made it automated. DVM makes it continuous. Now buildings can keep measuring what their HVAC system actually delivers, and stop paying for cooling and heating what they don’t need.” said Sam Molyneux, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Poppy.
“Ventilation isn’t just about how much outdoor air enters a building, it’s about how much actually reaches people in the breathing zone. ASHRAE Standard 62.1 addresses ventilation zone by zone for a reason: different spaces have different needs. Yet most buildings have lacked a practical way to verify what is actually delivered during operation. As a result, some zones may be under-ventilated while others receive more outdoor air than necessary, wasting energy. Continuous measurement changes that. It allows building owners to move beyond design assumptions, verify actual ventilation performance, and optimize HVAC operation to deliver the right amount of outdoor air where it’s needed, without unnecessary energy consumption.” Said Dr. Marwa Zaatari, Chief Engineer at Poppy.
