How the Internet of Things (IoT) leads to better comfort and energy management
October 28, 2016
A big topic at this year's GreenBuild was The Internet of Things (IoT). What is IoT and what does IoT mean for building professionals?
Simply stated IoT refers to the connectivity that's all around. As GreenBuild speaker Lindsay Baker of Comfy put it "Physical things are starting to be connected." By 2020, internet connected devices will exceed 50 billion.
In the IoT each physical thing is connected by being given a unique IP (internet protocol) address which allows it to be found online. Some examples include wi-fi enabled thermostats or wearables such as fitness monitoring devices or smart watches. Apps allow people to control door locks, find rooms and change lights.
As a result people are starting to change how they behave and buildings are getting smarter. Building equipment such as lights and HVAC systems are connecting to the internet bringing game-changing benefits for facility management and building occupants. Smart phones allow for more personalized comfort. Employees are moving towards assigned desks, activity based spaces, smaller desks and telework. Smart thermostats can rely on sensors to track movement in buildings to create an auto-adjusting temperature schedule.
IoT for HVAC
HVAC in particular plays a significant role in providing personalized comfort and so can benefit greatly from IoT. According to the 3-30-300 rule $300 of company costs is spent on salaries in comparison to $3 on utilities. With so much invested in people, it is easy to see why comfort cooling and heating should be so important to building owners. Having the right spaces and temperatures can make all the difference in whether a business succeeds or fails. When occupants in commercial buildings, guests in hotels or patients in hospitals are more comfortable, the result is higher customer satisfaction, more productivity and increased revenue.
However, as important as comfort is, today we don't have a real accurate way of gauging comfort. Another GreenBuild speaker, Chris Pyke of GRESB / Aclima pointed out that we have meters for everything except comfort. Even after modeling, special temporal variations are not predicted or presented in a way we would understand.
So how do you understand everyone's comfort level without having to ask repeatedly? The answer lies in IoT. IoT provides the real time answer to the question, are the building occupants comfortable? For instance, a technology based platform can usher feedback of the quality of the building including favorite rooms and why. Sensors can help understand each space's temperatures, humidity, air flow and occupancy levels in real time. According to GreenBuild speaker Josh Emig of WeWork, Heat map technology can sense where people are, then the buildings systems can react and auto-adjust temperatures accordingly.
Imagine checking a phone app to see if a private "phone" booth or a large conference room is available. IOT allows companies to share spaces while building community in a way that make sense for each company and individual. You get more comfortable spaces that use less resources.
"In the future, we won't have an electricity grid. It will be an energy network."
IoT is a total gamechanger in the sense that IoT changes how we view and use data. Just as a holistic view of buildings can cut energy costs so can data when interpreted holistically. Weather data would be collected so that a future temperature spike would automate the building's systems to prepare ahead of time. Cooling and heating systems would store thermal energy ahead of time when its most cost-effective – saving costs and ensuring comfort during the hottest or coolest time of day.
According to CALMAC Corp VP, Paul Valenta, "In the future, we won't have an electricity grid. It will be an energy network." Energy, pricing and data will flow in each direction of the network to ensure reliable and low cost energy.
Recently, the Washington Post penned an article about how IoT thermostats are being fed real-time weather data to counteract any surges in energy needs due to extreme heat or frigid temperatures. The benefits of having access to this information results in about a 16.5 percent reduction of electricity usage, according to the article. This heightened transparency helps both utilities and end users.
"We feel this would really help customers not only to save money, but help us from a distribution perspective," Carlos Nouel, National Grid's chief of new energy solutions, told the Post. Property investors who are becoming obsessed with building A/Cs will also benefit. Due to rising emissions from buildings, there is concern that regulators and politicians will come down hard on the building sector.
Facility managers gain more control
This shift to the IoT comes as Building Management Systems (BMS) and Building Automated Systems (BAS) have been underway. The Internet of Things (IoT) is just the next step towards a more sophisticated means of controlling building functions and holds several benefits over BMS/BAS alone. For example, smart internet connected chiller plants allow monitoring from any place, on a tablet or phone, providing advance diagnostics before issues turn costly.
IoT leverages the data collected by BMS/BAS to help facility management professionals understand how energy is used, what areas of the building are costing too much and when a potential need for maintenance will arise. IoT helps to improve indoor comfort by alerting facility management to conduct preventative maintenance which ensures chiller plant reliability, operational efficiency and equipment life. The IoT also works much faster than BAS/BMS, unlocking inefficiencies through advanced data mining and providing external data like weather and utility rates which take a chiller plant from reactive to predictive.
This transparency into operations comes at the perfect time, as building budgets are shrinking, according to Facility Executive. Reduced spending, employment cuts and an overarching need to improve comfort and efficiency are all making the day-to-day job of a facility manager increasingly difficult.
IoT can help by streamlining the job of energy managers. Dashboards can benchmark one facility against other similar buildings and monitor building portfolios or units. Building systems work differently based on who controls the building, varying heating/cooling equipment and different envelopes. So recommendations for optimizing building assets are flexible. The chiller plant can be controlled or automated. The IoT sends/receives data with or without human involvement, combining information sharing technology with automation. Automatic alarms alert management on changes in energy use, so building occupants get better comfort and buildings managers get better information on machinery so they can proactively adjust to building / occupant needs.
This change to predictive analytics is a major shift to greater savings and comfort. Guesswork is removed as systems operate at most opportune times with gains in system efficiency and comfort. Simply put, IoT provides "a smart way, right level of response"- Pyke.
