North Building Technologies

Firstly we would like to take this opportunity to say how pleased we are to be working with the CIBSE on this project, without initiatives like this coming from the top it is almost impossible to prove to the industry that Carbon efficient buildings make sense not only from an environmental point of view, but that they also stand up to commercial scrutiny.

North and Tyrrell got involved with the carbon 60 project as it offered a great opportunity for us to prove that modern Integration systems can be of real benefit when it comes to reducing the carbon footprint.

Fully integrated controls and monitoring allow the Energy manager to have more information about the usage of the building. By having a single seat solution that allows the energy manager the ability to chart people flow and building usage statistics and to over lay energy consumption information onto those charts, the building manager can better off set the need for comfort against energy and carbon foot print considerations.

There is a perception in the industry, (a legacy of early integration solutions), that the integration of building services is expensive to procure and to install. Modern systems actually offer a cost benefit and a greatly reduced total cost of ownership. Thus dramatically reducing the payback periods for these technologies.

Fully Integrated systems reduce carbon emissions in other less obvious ways than making sure the heating, cooling and lighting are used efficiently: Of course, you still get all of the energy savings of the traditional HVAC control systems by use of compensation and optimization..

By intelligent connection to building systems, faults are diagnosed more accurately; by remote web based interface. This can result in remote rectification of problems and reducing site visits by first fix. This reduces engineers’ visits to site. Which in turn reduces the engineers carbon emissions for travel and again reduces cost.

The use of intelligent connectivity between systems provides global cause and effect between different sub-systems, reducing energy consumption. For example, the door access system will know if a room is in use. Why not use that information to control services such as lighting. This reduces use on light bulbs which reduces emissions and maintenance costs.

Integration of all building systems also removes the requirement for separate computers and software for each of the connected systems by combining information services through a single portal. In turn, less computers means less energy consumption and less long term electronic disposal.

System integration extends the life of existing systems without having wholesale changes to these systems. This freedom of choice for sub-system supply and installation has always been a key benefit of integration.

The upcoming Euro directives on energy consumption require that every commercial building has an energy rating. This rating will be used to benchmark energy consumption year on year, targeting wasteful systems. Integrated technology in conjunction with energy meters and profiling will become an essential energy management tool in meeting these future requirements.

However, there are Challenges for business...

The current method for procurement of intelligent building systems does not pay enough attention to a number of factors that influence carbon emissions:

Design and build contracts will tend to use more low cost discrete systems rather than central plant with overall optimization for the building. For example, the installation of VRF based air conditioning systems with electric heating may be cost effective for the design and build contract but probably have a larger total cost of ownership than a central system. Either way, Integrated solutions can overlay optimization onto all of different types of systems

Specifications do not enforce any kind of measurable criteria for the selection of building control and monitoring systems with regard to energy consumption related performance.

Contracts do not have any concept of penalties for poor Carbon related performance and even any mechanism for measurement of performance.

Contracts are more often let based on cost against specification, paying little or no attention to fuel consumption or any related carbon emissions. There appears to be less and less and less long-term vision coming through this aging contractual process as time goes by. Speaking for ourselves, we are seeing most growth in areas with direct end-user specification. Here, the end-user appears to have a long term view and knows all the surrounding issues. Generally speaking, I think it may be bold, but fair to say that our culture has become more 'short-term' focused in recent years and it is quite possible that the full effect of short term thinking and vision are yet to be realised.

Since the original de-regulation of energy markets and its subsequent Dutch auction for the supply of energy, users have recently been less and less interested in even saving energy at all. We have engineered some systems where we were specifically told to disable optimisation since in their view: "energy is cheap and of little concern to the business in comparison with other activities"! The initial low costs afforded through the procurement of energy in an open market has given users a false sense of security when the reality is that energy costs are likely to at least double in the next five to ten years leaving users with egg on their face and badly performing buildings.

By the time people realise the importance of all the issues coupled with the associated long turn-around times for replacing physical systems and contractual processes we must hope that is not too little too late for the struggling environment.

The challenge to business it to confront this fear of change and make bold, long term commitments to actually make a real difference. We need to be considering the following key changes in our industry to make any worthwhile environmental impact:

We need to fully understand the implications of continuing on our present course and it's effects on our environment.

Knowing the issues, we need to embrace the new technologies and make them work, allowing building owners benefit from reduced life cycle costs. We should change our contractual frameworks and specifications to enforce a responsible and measurable attitude towards energy consumption.