Kyle McNamara

Over the last several months, we’ve seen our clients become more interested in smart building solutions, partly to reduce their energy consumption but also to reduce carbon output and integrate renewable energy sources. In brief, smart buildings leverage IP networks to lower capital and operating costs by integrating building systems (e.g., energy management, lighting, HVAC). This integration allows building owners and lessees to monitor energy usage at facilities, control usage in response to changing energy prices, and monitor and reduce carbon emissions.

Common goals of smart building programs include:

1. Conserve Energy: Ability to manage and limit power usage at company facilities, and to shed load among the devices connected to the network helps improve the utilization of connected equipment. Local override is generally allowed to give managers control.
2. Curtail Usage: Systems allows customers to leverage participation in load curtailment programs. Utilities will reduce power during peak times, and systems will resort to backup generation during peak times. In exchange, they get lower rates from the utility.
3. Monitor Carbon Output: Systems can be used to monitor real-time power usage by building and circuit, and calculate carbon emissions in near real-time. Adding a live interface to the US EPA also allows companies to update their EnergyStar rating on a real-time basis.
4. Increase Energy Reliability: Adding battery storage capabilities allows customers to maintain power levels even during outages. Alarms can be configured to detect low supply and switch automatically.

Companies can benefit from smart building solutions in both new and existing facilities. Existing building control equipment and devices can be integrated into a common application through solutions such as a federated bus architecture. Our enrolment in curtailment programs has allowed us to generate revenue streams from local utilities; in exchange for allowing them to cut our power during peak times, we receive direct payments and lower energy rates. When power is cut, our system automatically transfers to backup battery stores that maintain constant power for operations. We work with a variety of vendors to test their components and systems, giving us a solution that leverages a best of breed approach to monitor and control energy usage.