North Building Technologies

Fully Integrated, intelligent buildings are starting to emerge in the UK, with more and more consultants specifying not only converged but fully interoperable systems. Most of this work has been undertaken to give the building manager a much richer and detailed user interface to the property. However, with the increasing need to be energy aware. There are many ways in which you can use intelligence, convergence and integration to achieve an "Energy Intelligent Building".

What is the difference between convergence and Integration?

We hear about convergence all the time, but what does it really mean? Well convergence is simply the cross over in technology from proprietary BMS networks into standard IT type networks such as Ethernet - TCP/IP.

All that converged systems achieve is the ability for different devices to share the same network. Of course this is a huge advantage in new build projects, but of little use to retrofit programs.

Integration often uses convergence to physically connect devices together, but more often than not requires some extra software to link the different communications protocols of the systems together. Once the protocols have been integrated the systems can interoperate, as in the brief example above. Buying a "converged system" does not offer an open or integrated system. It simply allows different devices and different protocols to exists on the same physical cable.

Why Integrate?

We know from huge amounts of anecdotal and tested evidence that Energy in buildings is wasted due to poor control and lack of intelligence in the controlling systems. Systems are not aware of how the building is actually being used and many building/energy managers have insufficient information to hand to really tie down the usage of an individual room or zone.

Fully integrating the 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 and to over lay energy consumption information, 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..

Intelligently connecting building systems can allow faults are diagnosed more accurately. Remote web based interface can allow engineers to rectify many problems remotely, thus reducing site visits. also remote diagnosis ill increase the chances of first visit fix. Reducing engineers’ visits to site 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.

Of course integrating the systems allows for centralised monitoring (or single seat management). This 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. These may seem like small benefits now, but soon we will all be acutely aware of every electrical device, and its impact on the environment.

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.

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