WEB & IP Enabled Building Automation
Enthusiastic Users and System Integrators, “Carry the Vision Forward"
Article Index
Event Highlights
The Tridium 2008 Tridium Niagara Summit titled, “Carry the Vision Forward", was held at the Saddlebrook Resort, Wesley Chapel, Florida May 4-6, 2008 with a record number of attendees and sponsors with 667 in attendance and 50 sponsors participating in the event. This is the third Niagara Summit and there is still a high level of enthusiasm and creativity among users and systems integrators. Attendees included people from China, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, India, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. Attendees participated in various workshops, tutorials and technical sessions covering the enabling capabilities of NiagaraAX®, oBIX, the soon to be released Sedona Framework™, wireless, M2M, industrial, energy and residential applications. Tridium, Inc. is a subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc. since November, 2005.
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667 Attendees
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37 exhibitors
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Niagara Playground
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M2M City
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Niagara Theater
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23 Track Sessions
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390 Cigars (120 Habaneros, 120 Rothschilds, 150 Robusto)
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Countless lies from golfers on their game.
Success Built on Multivendor Platform
Tridium has developed a loyal following of customer and systems integrators since being founded in 1995 on the concept of providing a single WEB based user interface for Building Automation Systems from all suppliers. This is accomplished with Tridium’s patented Niagara Framework® (or "Niagara"), a Java-based framework that provides a software infrastructure to integrate diverse systems and devices - regardless of manufacturer or communication protocol - into a unified platform that can be easily managed in real time over the Internet using a standard web browser. Many features and capabilities have been added to the Niagara Framework to extend the product functionality. A significant number of companies build products "Powered by Niagara" including Alerton, Ameican Automatrix, Carrier, GE, Honeywell, Johnson Controls, LG, McQuay, Square D, Siemens, and T.A.C. (Schneider Electric). In March, Tridium announced the total number of instances for the company’s Niagara Framework surpassed 100,000 worldwide and at the conference stated their software is deployed in over 9,000 facilities worldwide.
Sedona Framework…Tridium’s Next Big Step
Tridium’s Sedona Framework created a great deal of excitement at the Summit and was thought provoking as well since it is a distributed controls platform. Sedona is another implementation of innovative ideas by Tridium and a bold move. Sedona is designed to extend the Tridium architecture down into end devices such as sensors and actuators. The application of Sedona was illustrated with it running on a small board about half the size of a stick of chewing gum with a single integrated circuit chip and a radio on it.
Sedona Module
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- 96KB RAM
- 128KB Flash
- 16 MHz
- Wireless/Serial
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Sedona demonstrated on a wireless module about half the size of a stick of chewing gum.
This platform is basically one chip (supplied by Jennic, www.jennic.com) and has an IEEE802.15.4 wireless transceiver onboard. The communications is based on 6LoWPAN. It also has serial lines for hardwired communications. Tridium views Sedona as being appropriate for a wide range of control applications including HVAC, medical, energy, industrial, wireless controls, and home automation. Basically any controls, automation and data acquisition applications which is an expansion of the business view and strategy.
“Sedona opens up embedded development to application domain experts. No longer will embedded software development be limited to ‘C’ programmers.”
“Sedona provides deterministic, real-time control, making it applicable for high performance applications such as industrial or life safety.”
The vision for Sedona is to become the de facto standard for M2M embedded software applications.
OEM Commitments to Sedona
At the Summit, Tridium announced commitments from three major device manufacturer’s to incorporate Sedona into their future products.
Belimo – Sedona for Control
The first of these companies is Belimo, the market leader in damper actuators. Belimo will integrate the capabilities of Sedona into its actuator platforms adding temperature control and communications to the pressure independent flow control actuators that are available today. As the leader in damper actuators, Belimo will integrate the capabilities of the Sedona Framework into its actuator platforms adding temperature control and communications to the pressure independent control that is available today. With Sedona's communication options, Belimo will give customers a VAV controller that is both BACnet(R) compliant and can alternately communicate wirelessly over a 802.15.4 mesh network to lower the installation costs for the controller and associated space temperature sensor.
Hill-Rom – Sedona for Patient Monitoring
Hill-Rom announced adoption of the Sedona architecture for medical equipment device monitoring and tracking. Hill-Rom is the largest manufacturer of hospital beds in the world. The concept is that medical instruments around the bed will be “discovered” via the Sedona wireless connection by a Tridium unit in the bed. At that point the equipment will be automatically associated with the patient providing a number of benefits. Hill-Rom supplies the majority of hospital beds in North America and commented they already have a number of medical equipment manufacturers interested in embedding the Sedona architecture into device.
Honeywell Environmental and Combustion Controls (ECC)
Honeywell Environmental and Combustion Controls (ECC) Buildings team based in Schonaich, Germany announced the selection of the Sedona technology to develop their new generation of products.
Keynote Jim Young, Realcomm – Innovation in the Commercial Real Estate Industry
Jim Young, Founder and Producer of Realcomm who provided a global perspective on challenges facing the industry and some of the most innovative ideas found at the “Intersection of Commercial Real Estate and Technology”. Jim discussed a number of problems and issues facing the United States and innovative ideas being deployed now as food for thought to stimulate thinking.
Read more on Jim's presentation
A number of users made presentations on the application of Tridium.
Multi-building Owner Deployment of Tridium – Duke Realty
Paul Quinn of Duke Realty a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) with 122M Square Feet under management in 730 Properties and ongoing building project developments of 20-30 new buildings per year provided the thinking behind adopting the Niagara AX framework now in 20 of their buildings and growing. Duke’s objectives are to standardize on a common platform and use products that conform to open standards to insure competitive pricing, better energy management data, flexibility for incremental retrofits, consistency for maintenance, increase efficiency, leverage centralized tenant call center and to have remote monitoring, diagnosis, & configuration.
Hospitality Solutions - Sheraton Royal Orchid Hotel, Bangkok
Mike Marston, Tridium, reviewed a converged IP application installed at the 700 room Sheraton Royal Orchid Hotel in Bangkok. This was a retrofit project completed in six months. The project achieved the goal of implementing a single IP network for communications and building services based on the CISCO CCRE (Cisco Connected Real Estate) model.
WAWA Food Markets
Pat Hagan, BAS Manager at WAWA described the company as a privately owned operating 575 convenience stores with 244 selling gasoline in the Mid-Atlantic (PA, NJ, MD, DE, VA). WAWA currently has 175 stores running Tridium systems and are rolling out 2-4 stores per week.
Pacific Controls – First Middle East LEED Platinum Building
Pacific Control Systems headquarters in Techno Park, Dubai is the first Platinum rated green building accredited by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) program in the Middle East and sixteenth in the world. Tridium is the building automation platform.
State of Michigan Facilities
Todd Perry is Building Operations Manager for the State of Michigan and shared their experiences creating an open system using Tridium.
Egg Production with Tridium
Stefano Strapparava, Managing Director, Silver Star Engineering Srl described the application of Tridium running a fully automated egg production facility.
Notable Products
Building Diagnostics – Enforma
ENFORMA® Building Diagnostics (EBD) is an Internet-based application that provides automated performance assessment of heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system components. It is a new class of fault detection and diagnostic (FDD) software for building HVAC. EBD operates as a plug-in within the Tridium® NiagaraAX environment, making it applicable to many building energy management and control systems. It detects hidden operational problems that lead to wasted energy and, in some cases, comfort problems.
www.enformadiagnostics.com
Slice I/O for Building Automation
SysMik has an interesting line of modular slice I/O for BAS applications. The company has 17 years of experience with LonWorks protocol, 2 years with BACnet and 3 years with the Tridium AX platform as an OEM partner. Their products are distributed by Engenuity in North America.
http://www.niagarasummit.com/exhibitors/exhibitor_alpha.asp#sysmik
Lighting Control Module - Encelium
The Encelium I/O Module is a universal hardware interface between the company’s GreenBus™ network and all ballasts and sensors, suitable for all voltages. The module provides individual fixtures with full dimming control and "addressable shut off" for ultimate energy savings without turning off power to the entire circuit. The GreenBus™ is designed specifically for this application to transmit energy data to hundreds of nodes in a daisy chained network using CAT3/CAT5 communication cable to simplify installation. It also integrates a power supply over the bus network to operate lighting controls and sensors. Encelium's addressable lighting control systems offers such features as daylight harvesting, personal lighting control at the desktop PC, occupancy control and demand responsive load shedding. The system can be integrated with other building systems such as HVAC, security, fire and automated shading via either a BACnet IP interface or through a Tridium JACE.
http://www.niagarasummit.com/exhibitors/exhibitor_alpha.asp#encelium
BACnet Router - Contemporary Controls
The Contemporary Controls BAS Routers route messages between BACnet/IP and BACnet MS/TP networks as per the ANSI/ASHRAE 135-2004 standard. They allow BACnet/IP devices connected over Ethernet to communicate with MS/TP devices. A resident web server allows configuration, commissioning, re-configuration and troubleshooting with a standard web browser.
Two versions of the router do the same job, but come in different packages. For permanent installation, the BASRT-B is housed in a metal case that mounts on 35-mm DIN-rail and is powered from a 24 VAC/VDC source. For portability, the BASRTP-B attaches to the USB port of any convenient local computer. Each unit contains one MS/TP port and one 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port.
Irrigation Control and Cabin Automation - Atkinson Electronics
Atkinson Electronics, Inc. has Tridium based landscape irrigation software and irrigation control modules along with LON based multi sensor input data acquisition modules. The company has been a Tridium systems integrator for almost 10 years and has developed a remote home or cabin automation product based on the AX platform.
Atkinson Electronics, Inc. has specialized in the HVAC and building automation industry since 1980. The company manufactures a full line of specialty control devices such as signal interfacing, scaling, fiber to LON and BACnet trunk routers, precision signal isolators, voltage sensitive relays and other signal converters.
http://www.niagarasummit.com/exhibitors/exhibitor_alpha.asp#atkinson
CMMS/ EAM asset Management Systems in Arabic
Eagle Technology’s ProTeus CMMS/ EAM asset Management software is now available in Arabic, expanding the companies language offerings that already include US and British English, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, German, Greek, Hungarian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.
http://www.niagarasummit.com/exhibitors/exhibitor_alpha.asp#eagle
More detailed information that are linked to from Event Highlights.
Keynote Jim Young, Realcomm – Innovation in the Commercial Real Estate Industry
Jim Young, Founder and Producer of Realcomm who provided a global perspective on challenges facing the industry and some of the most innovative ideas found at the “Intersection of Commercial Real Estate and Technology”.
Problems & Issues - Jim discussed a number of problems and issues facing the United States.
Oil - “Will $300 a barrel oil impact office building values?”
In 2004 an article in Realcomm asked a prophetic question, “Will $100 for a barrel oil impact office building values?” In 2004 oil prices topped at $55.17 a barrel. Jim posed a new question about the impact of $300 for a barrel oil! Jim showed the relationship between United States GDP and oil consumption that illustrates US growth and oil consumption have been in step with each other. The big change is world oil demand with China being the most significant user. 2008 global oil consumption is projected to be 86 MBPD (Million Barrels Per Day) with US Consumption of 21M BPD or 24% of world production. China is projected to be 8 MBPD (9%) with consumption by 2050 of 120 MBPD. Clearly oil prices are going up driven by demand.
Engineers
Engineering graduates in the United States are a fraction of the number that India and china are graduating. In 2004 the US had 50,000 engineering graduates in contrast to China, 400,000 and India, 350,000. United States high school math ranking is now 18th and 24th in science out of 38 industrialized nations.
Innovation, Innovation, Innovation - Jim proposed that we can use technology to innovate, save energy, and improve effectiveness. He cited a number of thought provoking examples that use technology.
Ms. Dewey the Sexy Search Engine
Ms. Dewey is a young librarian doing her best to help you find what you are looking for, but who gets bored if you don’t ask her the right question. This is a fully animated search engine, based on a lot of video footage of our librarian in a futuristic city landscape, Ms. Dewey. You enter your search term in a search form, as normal, and regular search results will appear in a pop up window — eventually, but first the lady will try to tell you the answer. That often takes a lot of thinking on Ms. Dewey’s side. She looks bored, mischievous, sad, happy or embarrassed, which is all very funny. And the intros (which vary) can be pure entertainment.
www.msdewey.com
Remote Tutors
Jim talked about the remote tutor in India that his daughter has delivered over the internet.
An example, TutorCo (
www.tutorco.com ) provides LIVE 1-on-1 Tutoring for K-12 Math, Physics and Chemistry for as low as $10 per hour. TutorCo states their tutors all have at least a bachelor's degree in the related field and considerable teaching experience. Most of them have an advanced degree in math or education as well. They all undergo weeks of extensive training and are permitted to tutor students only after passing a rigorous certification exam. Tutors receive regular training, and are assigned mentors who regularly review their sessions, student ratings and feedback to continually improve session quality.
Iris Access Control
New Iris reading and recognition camera systems that provide a higher level of security than simple card access systems.
Hotel Energy Management Systems
Hotel energy management systems that shut off all electrical devices in a hotel room when guests are not present.
Cell Phone Credit Cards
In 2007 VeriSign and Visa signed a deal to partner together with merchants to not only allow payments to be made via cell phones, but special offers given to mobile payment customers. Think about walking up to a soda machine and sending a text message that you want a Coke, or buying your new big screen TV by simply sending a text to Best Buy. The world is moving away from cash payments, and utilizing the mobile phone is the next logical step.
Intelligent Toilet Automatically Checks Users Health
Health checks from your doctor could be replaced by visits to the bathroom, thanks to a smart toilet developed by a Japanese company. The "Intelligence Toilet" system, created by Japan's largest toilet company, Toto, can measure sugar levels in urine, blood pressure, body fat and weight. Toto has dominated the toilet-making business in Japan since the late 1970s when Western-style toilets started to become more popular than traditional squat toilets. Researchers at Vienna's Technical University last month announced plans to produce a "toilet with brains" -- a high-tech commode designed to help multiple sclerosis patients and other disabled or elderly people
Significant Buildings Outside of United States
Jim showed pictures and facts about significant new buildings and an entire new concept of cities being built around the world. In both China and the Persian Gulf, cities comparable in size to New York have sprouted up almost overnight. Only 30 years ago, Shenzhen was a small fishing village of a few thousand people, and Dubai had merely a quarter million people. Built at phenomenal speeds, today Shenzhen has a population of eight million, and Dubai has glittering towers, rising out of the desert. Dubai, lays claim to some of the world’s most expensive private islands, the tallest building and soon the largest theme park. You can get a feel for the number and scale of new builds at:
www.skyscraperpage.com
Ski Dubai?
An interesting new building is Ski Dubai is the first indoor ski resort in the Middle East offers an indoor snow setting to enjoy skiing, snowboarding and tobogganing, or just playing in the snow. Ski Dubai is a unique mountain-themed attraction that offers you the opportunity to enjoy real snow in Dubai all year round. An amazing 22,500 square meters covered with real snow all year round. Ski Dubai has 5 runs that vary in difficulty, height and gradient, the longest run being 400 meters with a fall of over 60 meters. Ski Dubai also features a 3000 square meters indoor snow park and quad-chairlift and tow. The facility is 22,500m² covered with real snow all year round (equivalent to 3 football fields), 85 meters high (approximately 25 stories) and 80 meters wide, 5 different runs of varying difficulty and length, longest run of 400 meters.
www.skidubai.com
Electric Sports Car, 0-60 MPH in 3.9 seconds!
The Tesla electric sports car is 100% electric and does 0-60 MPH in 3.9 seconds. In March, the company announced regular production of the 2008 Tesla Roadster. Tesla Motors develops and manufactures electric vehicles with exceptional design, performance and efficiency, while conforming to all U.S. safety, environmental and durability standards. The Tesla Roadster is the only highway capable production electric car of any kind for sale in the United States. With a 0 to 60 mph acceleration of 3.9 seconds, a 13,000 rpm redline, and the fastest top gear acceleration of any production car tested by Car & Driver magazine in 2007, combined with an EPA rating of 135 MPG equivalent, the Tesla Roadster is unique.
www.teslamotors.com.
So what is the message?
Think creatively
Apply Technology
Sophisticated investment analysis
Jim’s message is that we need to start thinking creativity about how to deploy new technology in buildings making them more productive and efficient. This needs to be coupled with more sophisticated investment analysis to justify the application of technology to buildings to be competitive.
Return to Event Highlights
Steve Fey, President of Tridium explained the Sedona product line objective is for widespread adoption in a wide range of markets.
“The motivation behind Sedona is that Niagara is limited by its size and the hardware platform that is needed to run it. As a result the market for Niagara devices is actually relatively small compared to the overall market. For example, in a typical building application there is a single JACE. It in turns communicates with anywhere from 10 to 100 smart devices. Sedona on the other hand, is designed for small devices, opening up a market that could exceed over 1 billion products annually.”
“Sedona opens up embedded development to application domain experts. No longer will embedded software development be limited to ‘C’ programmers.”
“Sedona provides deterministic, real-time control, making it applicable for high performance applications such as industrial or life safety.”
The vision for Sedona is to become the de facto standard for M2M embedded software applications.
Open Source
Tridium states that Sedona is the industry's first, open source software development framework that provides a complete platform for developing, connecting and managing small, low level embedded devices. The Sedona Framework allows manufacturers to easily and quickly build their own devices for internet applications, dramatically accelerates time to market and reduces the cost of developing and deploying pervasive device connectivity solutions.
The core of Sedona is going to be open source. The Sedona Compiler, Virtual machine and runtime, Sox, web server, and basic control blocks are licensed through the Open Source Initiative (OSI) under the OSI Academic Free License ("AFL") v. 3.0. More information on this license can be found at:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/academic.php
There are Commercial licenses for the 6LoWPAN, drivers, advanced functionality, technical support, professional services, and bundled modules from Tridium.
The Sedona tool is an extension of Niagara’s Workbench, meaning that in the future, SI’s will be able to program and maintain smart devices at all levels in the architecture from a single configuration tool.
Devices built on Sedona can be automatically discovered by Niagara and integrate seamlessly. The architecture supports the capability for devices to be field reprogrammable using Tridium software.
The user creates applications with Tridium development software that generates Sedona program objects. These software objects are small to accommodate the smaller Sedona devices.
“And when you go beyond protocols to the application itself, you achieve a much higher level of interoperability, one that clearly expands choice for end users.”
The actual Sedona general product release is scheduled for late 2008. The November, 2008 release was defined as Open Source code and commercial offering of the Sedona Workbench, Developer Board, Developer Support, Sedona / Jennic Module, and Sedona / PowerPC Module.
Technical Notes:
The Tridium team evaluated using Java as the language for Sedona but there are two major issues that prevented this. 1) Java has a large footprint and 2) Java uses “garbage collection” which makes it non-deterministic. This led to the development of Sedona which is a component based language (function blocks, drivers, apps) that has its own Virtual Machine.
The Sedona communications architecture is based on 6LoWPAN allowing every device to have an IP address.
About 6LoWPAN
The Sedona communications implementation is 6LoWPAN! So what is this? 6lowpan is an acronym of IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks and has been created by the IETF. The Internet Engineering Task Force (
www.IETF.org ) is a large open international community that promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standard bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite. IETF members include network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.
The charter of the IETF 6LoWPAN working group was to define how to carry IP-based communication over IEEE 802.15.4 links while conforming to open standards and assuring interoperability with other IP devices.
The breakthrough of IETF 6LoWPAN is to achieve a very compact and efficient implementation of IP, removing the factors that previously gave rise to an array of ad hoc standards and proprietary protocols. This has particular value in the world of industrial protocols (such as BACNet, LonWorks, the Common Industrial Protocol and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), which originally were developed to provide interoperability over particular, industry-specific busses and links. Developers of these protocols have created IP options to allow operation over such “modern” technologies as Ethernet. The advent of 6LoWPAN lets these established protocols extend their IP option to new links, such as 802.15.4 — and thus to interoperate automatically with emerging protocols designed specifically for 802.15.4 (such as ZigBee and SP100.11a).
Multi-building Owner Deployment of Tridium – Duke Realty
Paul Quinn of Duke Realty a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) with 122M Square Feet under management in 730 Properties and ongoing building project developments of 20-30 new buildings per year provided the thinking behind adopting the Niagara AX framework now in 20 of their buildings and growing.
Duke’s objectives are to standardize on a common platform and use products that conform to open standards to insure competitive pricing, better energy management data, flexibility for incremental retrofits, consistency for maintenance, increase efficiency, leverage centralized tenant call center and to have remote monitoring, diagnosis, & configuration.
They formed a Building Automation Committee made up of people representing construction, maintenance, property management, energy management, and IT. In the first year they defined standards, framework, and return on investment criteria (ROI). These activities led to major rewrite of their Master Specification for completeness, clarity, specificity, and preferred standards (Lon for example). This also required developing a list of recommended suppliers and products as well as unauthorized suppliers and products. Making this kind change and standardization required a massive educational effort of executive, engineering firms, project managers, superintendent, subcontractors, and maintenance, property management that is ongoing. They are in the process of defining configuration standards for user interface & graphics, alarms, and history. They have added a certified Niagara AX resource on staff and are implementing centralized account administration, alarm monitoring, and diagnose before dispatch.
Lessons Learned
- It takes time to determine your standards.
- Document, Communicate
- It takes time to get everyone on board.
- Constant education
- Implement a review process on every new building.
- Determine your governance structure who has authority to make final decisions?
Hospitality Solutions - Sheraton Royal Orchid Hotel, Bangkok
Mike Marston, Tridium, reviewed a converged IP application installed at the 700 room Sheraton Royal Orchid Hotel in Bangkok. This was a retrofit project completed in six months. The project achieved the goal of implementing a single IP network for communications and building services based on the CISO CCRE (Cisco Connected Real Estate) model. Tennant services and building systems are integrated using a common IP network including VoIP phones, lighting control, energy management, fire alarm, access control, energy management, video surveillance, and the hotel PMS (Property Management System). Benefits achieved include DDC over Ethernet, Very Fast installation for Retrofit, Interface with Fidelio (Point of Sale System), XML Interface, integrated Concierge Services, better customer comfort, and energy savings.
WAWA Food Markets
Pat Hagan, BAS Manager at WAWA described the company as a privately owned operating 575 convenience stores with 244 selling gasoline in the Mid-Atlantic (PA, NJ, MD, DE, VA). All stores are centrally managed from the corporate office and are spread out over a wide geographic area broken up into 20 service zones. WAWA started in 2000 with an RFI/RFP and identified Tridium as integration platform. They also selected HVAC Concepts, Inc.(
www.hvacc.net) as the system integrator for a Multi-Year rollout of 2-4 stores per week with about 175 stores installed to date.
WAWA was motivated to apply a systems approach based on increasing energy costs, escalating maintenance and repair costs, inability to effectively monitor and control HVAC/R and other system, verification of overall building performance, and inability to log operating data for enterprise reporting tools.
Pat described the reasons for selecting Tridium as the flexibility of an open platform, not tied into any single OEM or system integrator, ability to communicate with many protocols, ability to develop custom drivers to unsupported devices, and commitment to enterprise level platforms.
Lessons Learned
- Information from the system is changing WAWA’s facility operations procedures and expectations.
- Using digital refrigeration controllers rather than mechanical has been more efficient.
- A bare-bones installation will not provide adequate information to accomplish their goals.
- Store service in more efficient by sharing BAS interface and data with service vendors as a diagnostic tool.
- Open and interoperable systems are key allowing WAWA to be independent from any single OEM.
- Equipment system changes are now monitored and real operational impact verified.
- Monitoring has allowed WAWA to determine that some vendors do not meet their nameplate specifications.
Benefits
- The system helps focus limited resources to attack and correct critical issues.
- Equipment operating costs are monitored across multiple locations.
- System documents warranty issues with equipment to manufacturers and service vendors.
- Knowledge learned can be leveraged across all stores on the system.
Results
- Overall Energy usage savings of 5-7%
- Service vendors are dispatched sooner, before product loss or interruption in operations.
- Service vendor dispatched with a better understanding of the issue.
- An initial increase in dispatches to correct small chronic problems followed by a reduction in dispatches.
- Some issues resolved remotely.
- Improved operation of equipment extends life cycle.
Examples
- System proved value of adding air handling economizers to HVAC units to take advantage of free cooling.
- System has been used to prove refrigeration circuit sizing issues.
- Identify walk-in refrigeration door propping open issues.
- Correct improperly installed rooftop unit exhaust fans (missing dampers, attic fan issues, etc)
Conclusions
WAWA isn’t done, ongoing task include:
- Using data to determine future equipment selection and store design.
- Shaping loads to reduce power costs.
- Expanding BAS to more equipment throughout the company.
Pacific Controls – First Middle East LEED Platinum Building
Pacific Control Systems headquarters in Techno Park, Dubai is the first Platinum rated green building accredited by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) program in the Middle East and sixteenth in the world. The award winning headquarter building has achieved LEED certification from the USGBC, accumulating a total of 55 points.
Pacific Control Systems LLC is an ISO 9001:2000 company providing total automation solutions globally. Headquartered in Dubai, Pacific Controls has been involved in successfully implementing integrated automation solutions in the Government and Private sectors. The new Headquarters of Pacific Controls is to serve as the "Center of Excellence" for the company’s R&D activities in automation business in the Middle East.
Designed using an integrated approach, the five-story, 120,000-sq-ft PCS headquarters features solar thermal air conditioning, water-efficient equipment, high-efficiency chillers, solar photovoltaic for building lighting, variable speed drives (VSD) for centrifugal fans and pumps, and CO2 monitoring for IAQ (Indoor Air Quality).
Pacific Controls is the official Tridium partner in the Middle East and used the Niagara Framework to integrate all building systems to the Cisco IP backbone. The IP backbone supports all the building systems which are built on open software standards including Obix, BACnet, Lon, Modbus, and OPC. All HVAC equipment, lighting, access control, IP telephony, and facility management (FM) software are fully integrated. Employees use Cisco IP touchscreen phones as an interface to turn on lights and change the setpoints of the air conditioning. The system is Web-based on an IP backbone secured by a Cisco firewall and other high-level security features.
State of Michigan Facilities
Todd Perry is Building Operations Manager for the State of Michigan and shared their experiences. For the past six years, he has been involved in building operations and facilities management for Michigan ’s Department of Management and Budget. The progression of improvements started with performance contracting in the mid 1990’s followed by lighting and VAV improvements in the late 90’s. Subsequently they worked to eliminate sole sourcing and are working to reduce energy consumption based on an Executive Directive. The present goals are to have a distributed open architecture system that integrates existing systems with a common look and feel to simplify and consolidate command and control functions on one common platform. This is to include dash boards for the 37 facilities managed by Building Operations Division based on standard.
Using Tridium, the Basic graphics and network standards are completed and the server system is collecting energy data on HVAC, energy, elevator and lighting. The next goals are complete energy meter integration and continued expansion of the system.
Egg Production with Tridium
Stefano Strapparava, Managing Director, Silver Star Engineering Srl described the application of Tridium in a fully automated egg production facility. The eggs are automatically conveyed from barns to the packaging area and automatically packaged. This is an unusual application for a very specialized industry and Niagara enabled development from scratch of a sophisticated application. The Tridium based system controls and monitors a number of items:
- Real-time control of the environmental parameters (internal/external temperature, %R.H., internal negative pressure).
- Real-time control of the machines involved in the process like: fans, hydraulic system for windows opening/closing, food/water distribution, lighting etc.
- Real-time measurement of the food and water consumption.
- Multi-site configuration with centralized data management through a Web Portal.
- Wireless communication with the central server via GPRS.
- Alarm management and escalation rules for the intervention at site.
- Automatic gas detection and air refresh depending on CO, NH3 concentration.
- Real-time view of the poultry houses by remote controlled video cameras.
- Real-time data flow to enterprise servers.
- Easy installation both on new and existing plants.
