Converge & Conquer

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Facilities Management

Converge & Conquer

7/1/2008

By Paul Korzeniowski

Web-based control. At the turn of the millennium, Cornell was looking for an intelligent building solution for its 150,000-square-foot nanoscience building, which has been open since 1986 and is utilized on a 24/7 basis. The university selected WebCTRL from Automated Logic for the project because its web-based interface simplifies the programming tasks required to capture different types of performance metrics such as temperature differences inside and outside a room. By customizing the system, the university was able to examine temperature fluctuations in its rooms and then set new thresholds to minimize the stress placed on its HVAC equipment. Then by storing that information in a database, the university was also able to track its annual energy usage in the building and found that the installation of the WebCTRL system resulted in an annual reduction of $350,000 in its energy costs. The gains were so great that Cornell expanded use of the Automated Logic solution to its science hall.

Harvard is using Siemens' web-based Apogee system to monitor the heat in its Blackstone complex. "We can set the temperature lower at night when the rooms are not occupied, and raise it when the students start to arrive," notes Ragucci. A kiosk in the foyer of each building lets everyone see how well the energy systems are performing; the kiosks also raise awareness about energy usage and the benefits of building environmentally friendly intelligent buildings.

Russell Boudreau, HVAC/utilities specialist at 2,100-student Mount Holyoke College (MA), understands how much smarter the management of buildings is becoming. He has been using various "smart" systems for more than three decades, and marvels at the recent technical advances in building control systems. Like many academic institutions, Mount Holyoke found itself with a variety of proprietary control systems that were incompatible, and so could not exchange information. In 2000, Mount Holyoke officials asked local consultants to help them identify a BACnet-compatible system. Working with regional reseller Yankee Technology, the college installed Automated Logic's WebCTRL system in four buildings on campus, including a renovated art building & museum. Because WebCTRL is a webbased product, Mount Holyoke facilities personnel are now able to monitor the four buildings from an internet browser, rather than use special-purpose software running on laptop computers.

"It wasn't that long ago that technicians worked with cryptic, specialized interfaces," Boudreau remarks. But times have certainly changed: Intelligent building controls are now the centerpiece of construction on Mount Holyoke's new uni- fied science complex, which will provide 116,000 square feet of space, including a new multistory 40,000-square-foot environmentally sound building.

Capping rising energy costs. When it comes to intelligent buildings, heating systems get a lot of attention. Trying to cap or cut electricity costs, especially, has become an area of interest for campus administrators. Davis Gandees, sales engineer for Johnson Controls, knows this only too well. "Recently, universities' energy costs encountered a 'perfect storm,'" he explains. "Energy usage has been rising, fossil fuel prices have been going up, in some cases as much as 30 percent, and state budget deficits have meant less funding for state educational institutions."