Innovating the next generation of commercial smart building software
Nearly 30% of commercial building energy use is wasted due to equipment faults and HVAC controls problems. The result is increased emissions, compromised comfort and productivity, and less reliable coordination of building power needs with a clean grid. The energy impact alone represents $17 billion in potential savings. Today’s smart building software provides a robust solution to address these operational deficiencies. Energy management and information systems (EMIS) are saving up to 9% on average, with two-year paybacks. They are being incorporated into energy management processes, commissioning services, and utility programs. As effective as they are, two barriers prevent even deeper benefits; limited personnel to fix problems once they are identified, and the expense and time to manually implement changes in control systems. In partnership with the research community, the EMIS industry is developing new capabilities to overcome these barriers. Moving beyond siloed products for either fault detection and diagnostics, or optimal control, these new capabilities empower users to not only automatically identify faults, but also to push corrective action, and control improvements to their buildings. In this paper, several areas for enhancements are documented: ‘one-time’ correction of faults such as setpoints, schedules, and economizer lockouts; short-term active testing for automated proportional integral derivative (PID) loop tuning and functional testing; and continuous supervisory control for demand flexibility and year-round efficiency. Results are presented from a pair of partner implementations out of a dozen providers integrating these enhancements into their products, including field tests from across the country, and insights into operator acceptance and integration into operations and maintenance practices.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office (EE-5B)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 2439973
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2024 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, Pacific Grove, CA (United States), 4-9 Aug 2024
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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