Many of us have heard about the advantages of implementing a building management system (BMS) when it comes to automating building features, increasing physical security and saving time.
But what we often miss are the hidden benefits, such as lower energy consumption and resulting cost and resource optimization. The components and systems of building automation, in particular for heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and renewables, offer the possibility to increase buildings’ energy efficiency and optimize energy consumption even further than originally intended.
Defining the building’s electric energy consumption profile
Every building has an electric energy consumption profile and a production profile as well if it uses renewable energy sources like photovoltaic or solar thermal systems. These consumption profiles are determined by the building’s internal processes: heating, cooling, lighting, and internal loads. Once they are properly defined, they provide freedom for optimization purposes.
Starting points for optimizing energy processes in order to increase energy efficiency
After defining the building’s energy profile, building operators can start optimizing its processes for increased efficiency:
1. monitoring energy consumption in various systems and detecting improvements or faults in the system: heating or cooling demand at the same time in different areas of the building, systems that are permanently running, broken valves, unnecessary lighting and so on.
2. defining a dynamic thermal behavior by setting the schedules and control strategies of heating, cooling, and ventilation to meet optimization goals
3. integrating all systems in a common visual interface to have a real-time overview of the building’s performance
Benefits of energy consumption optimization
Implementing a building management system with a solid focus on energy consumption optimization has two main advantages:
– reduced greenhouse gases and increased environmental protection
– cost savings for the end-user between 16% and 41% derived from consciously optimizing the building’s behavior and consumption patterns
Successful Stories
With extensive experience in building automation and physical security, our projects focus on both time and energy savings. A newly finished project is the implementation of an energy efficiency software platform at Garrett Advancing Motion factory in Bucharest. The customer needed to have a clear view of the consumption of each production line and the status in case of failure.
Our solution consisted of implementing an energy efficiency solution that gathers real-time information about the energy consumption and monitors the activity of every electrical meter inside the factory. The information provided is viewed in a graphical interface with custom reports and graphics that help optimize the energy used in the production process. Data is saved on an hourly, daily, monthly and yearly basis and all reports can be managed and presented in table view or graphic view.
We are proud to have helped our customer achieve and maintain a high energy efficiency standard with solid financial and environmental benefits.
Looking for an energy efficiency solution? Contact us and tell us more about it.
