Delivering the benefits of building intelligence

Building
The technology exists for modern commercial buildings to be managed intelligently to maximise environmental conditions and minimise energy use — but the information available is frequently not used to best effect.
Doug Robins shares his views on how the potential benefits of building intelligence can be realised in our regular series of article contributed by the Building Controls Industry Association.These days people are confronted with enormous amounts of information of all types. The torrent starts as soon as we wake up — from reading the morning newspaper or listening to the radio to arriving at work to deal with the myriad of e-mails that are, strangely, sent overnight. There is no let up to this bombardment from the moment we wake to the time we go to sleep. How do we manage and use this information effectively? We normally prioritise and departmentalise the information and deal with the most important to us first. When it comes to buildings, information is generated continuously via the building-management system, but we do not often consider how this information is going be used to the benefit of the occupying business. Building intelligence Over the last 20 years there has been a lot of discussion and debate about the concept of an ‘intelligent building’. So what is an intelligent building? Paul Ehrlich of the Building Intelligence Group defines one as: ‘Use of technology and process to create a building that is safer and more productive for its occupants and more operationally efficient for its owners’. When this concept is implemented correctly using the appropriate technologies and processes, buildings cost less to operate, employees are more productive, and the value of the building is increased. While there have been some worthy attempts to achieve Paul Ehrlich’s definition using the technology available at the time, many fail due to not addressing the ‘people’ issue and how they use the information that is available. Therefore, whilst the building is at the forefront of technology, the potential efficiencies are often missed. Typically, when discussing building intelligence, the design tends to be driven by the technology available and how it is to be implemented — not about how the information generated will be managed. The systems should also be designed around the eventual occupants, since they are the ultimate purpose of any commercial building. Integration Today’s technology allows more building systems to be integrated, leading to additional management time to deal with the increased information generated. Often, different systems are integrated so that one system can monitor what is happening in the other. Unfortunately, the question that is not asked is what they are going to do with the extra information. It is not important what protocol is being used when integrating two systems; what is important is what value that integration is adding to the eventual occupants. Modern building-management systems are very good at generating information; how that information is processed is the key to having intelligence in the building. Energy efficiency Sustainability and energy efficiency are at the top of everyone’s agenda these days, but the potential of achieving these in buildings is often not realised. This could be due to the information being generated not being acted upon, either automatically by the technology applied or by the system operators. Designers are now committed to producing the most energy-efficient designs and the technology to control these. The accountability of their designs, particularly the energy efficiency element, needs to be better enforced, as many systems are not operating to their true potential. In fact, many follow-up studies have shown that projects have fallen short of achieving their projected energy reductions. Part L of the Building Regulations was designed to address the energy efficiency of buildings. However, due to the lack of understanding and enforcement many of the requirements are not being met. Whilst Part L attempts to address these requirements, it assumes that the information gathered will be used to manage the energy usage better. That is a big assumption. The building may be metered and monitored, but what happens to the information The only requirement is to record certain parameters in the building log book. Whose responsibility is it to maintain and update it? With the imminent impementation of the Building Energy Performance Certification, more emphasis will be required for the operators to be better trained and more informed about the potential energy savings that can be achieved. Monitoring building services will become much more important in the future, and the information gathered will need to be used to maintain the best energy performance rating for the building throughout its lifetime. Conclusions There are three issues that the market needs to address. The first is that the installers of the technology need to be talking to the eventual occupiers at an early stage of the development to ensure the information generated is relevant and is acted upon correctly. The second is that the technology needs to become more intelligent. Information generated needs to create an action automatically. Many systems, for example, only report faults or monitor systems but do not action anything. History profiles could be generated to anticipate maintenance or alarms, and the necessary action could then be automatically generated. Thirdly, energy monitoring needs to be linked into the other building systems to achieve potential energy savings and to meet the requirements of the overall building energy performance. Many HVAC, lighting, fire and security, and metering systems are supplied separately to the software packages for energy monitoring and targeting, a practice that needs to change so that energy use can be used to gain from the efficiencies of the building systems. When this is achieved a building will become as intelligent as the people in it. Doug Robins is president of the Building Controls Industry Association and a business-development manager for Priva Building Intelligence.
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