Getting the most out of BMS

There is a fair chance if you turn on the news today, tomorrow or the next day you will hear stories of cuts, impending cuts, and the overall effect of cuts. But as they say all clouds do have a silver lining somewhere, we just have to look.

You are well used to me now talking about how cutting energy consumption equals saving money. So if we all know that this is true why are we not all doing it and being quids in?

The answer is simple, like most things in life, there are stumbling blocks and these can be big enough or challenging enough to put energy saving on the back burner. - BUT DON’T! There are tools out there that can easily help identify the what, where, how, when and why!

For example a Building Management System (BMS) is an ideal tool which highlights all the opportunities for energy reduction in one place – just what we like simple and very effective. A BMS will identify unnecessary use of utilities or energy and control it – especially energy intensive equipment, helping you to reduce usage and of course equally as important - reduce overall costs.

Controlling equipment such as heating, lighting, refrigeration and compressors can help improve energy reduction targets from 15 to 30 percent simply by using the equipment smartly. A BMS will ensure equipment is switched off when it is not being used at night, it can ensure your set point temperatures are maintained at a comfortable level and will make sure conflicting equipment, such as air conditioning and heating, aren’t being used at the same time.

But there is one other thing you need to think about, even with the powers of a BMS, that is of course, people.

Both the presence and absence of people can have a significant effect on how a BMS is used, and subsequently how efficient your building can be. I have seen on numerous occasions how staff can override a company’s set point control turning the temperature up or down and even prop open windows and doors. And when they leave a building, it is not uncommon for equipment to be left on simply through forgetfulness – which leads to energy being used unnecessarily.

An easy way of minimising, or even eliminating, this excess use is to use software to enhance the BMS function – engage the staff – empower the staff – if they can see how this all works and how their actions impact on the building’s energy performance they are more likely to think about their actions. Educate them in order to help them help you control the amount of energy being used.

Software like dashboards will showcase the energy being used – in an easily understandable way - to everyone. Displaying the team targets and comparing them against current performance in relation to these can enthuse staff in to being more energy efficient. Of course this all translates into monetary savings too which is good for everyone in the company.

So we should all go with the grain and make our own cuts where we can – and there is no easier place to start than the wasted energy in our buildings. With the right equipment and a collective approach there are plenty of savings to be made by us all!

Budget Cuts Could Provide Green Opportunities

The recent emergency budget presented challenges for businesses across the UK, with the chancellor making some significant changes that will impact on many aspects of business life. Having thought how these changes will affect my own business, I started thinking how the increases and cuts outlined by the new coalition government could help businesses make a significant change for the better by thinking smarter about their energy management.

While many of us consider our business forecasts for the remainder of the financial year, particularly with the increase of VAT to 20% on 4 January 2011, we all will no doubt look at more ways to cut operational costs as a first port of call. But, I believe these new measures present a very ‘green’ opportunity for businesses to look deeper into their operational activity – specifically their building management – and not overlook how they could cut costs with an immediate as well as long-term positive impact on their overheads.

At times of financial uncertainty it is normal to look for the obvious immediate cuts which deliver quick, visible saving. It is human nature. For most when reducing expenditure they cut what we know can save us money now – getting rid of plants, cutting down the water supply or even maybe laying off staff. But, if you are reviewing your expenditure it is important to look at the wider costs incurred by the organisation which are unnecessary and are pure wastage, and can be avoided but often overlooked.

Of course I am referring to our use of buildings their operation and the costs involved in actually running them. This is usually detailed in monthly bills that are, unfortunately, rarely reviewed or compared. This is where most of us will find savings.

Simply taking control, and centralising the control strategy of a building by limiting set-points on air conditioning, ensuring the heating is not in competition with air conditioning, staging lighting controls, and having an alert system on consumption peaks can all significantly produce financial savings for any business. By using a building management system to do this anyone can develop a more cost effective approach to managing operations which will be both beneficial in the short and long run.

Cost savings as a result of controlling energy use are exactly what I encounter every day working with companies from all different sectors that have chosen to manage their energy consumption using t-mac’s building management system. By installing technology like this, businesses are reaping the rewards financially – many seeing much appreciated immediate results. And the environment is winning too.


Although any initial financial outlay may need careful budgetary consideration, especially in the current economic climate, the savings will always far out way the cost incurred. Some of our customers have experienced an average saving of up to 30% on their energy bills, with a return on investment within 6 months – a shorter ROI than average building management systems (BMS). Our customers have also found we are 60% cheaper to install and maintain than standard BMS systems, with many additional features available.

It is worth thinking about how new changes implemented by our new coalition government in an effort to decrease the country’s deficit can indeed provide opportunity for a business to ‘spring clean’ its operational systems and procedures making significant savings which will last well in to the future.

Education + education + education = a greener Britain

Earlier this month I told you about our work with Southwold School and EDF Energy, teaching school kids about the importance of saving energy, while saving the school vital money.

It’s a shame that many adults don’t seem to share the same enthusiasm in learning how to reduce their carbon footprint!

Today ignoring energy efficiency is impossible – it is everywhere, from government pledges to local council incentives to recycle.

As we move ever closer to 2020 more emphasis is being placed on meeting the agreed targets to create greener and more sustainable businesses across the UK and we all have our part to play.

Meeting the set requirements and avoiding penalties can bring added pressures to businesses – especially facilities managers, many of which have overall responsibility for delivering reductions. The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme has been in place for two months now and for businesses that consume more than 6000 mega-watt hours (MWh) they have been focussing on monitoring energy intensive equipment and assets.

But it seems many have neglected to address one of the biggest causes of wasted energy, us.

As a manager of staff, I am keen to encourage my own employees to adopt simple measures to keep our company’s energy levels down. People account for a large amount of a building’s total carbon emissions and by ‘teaching’ your staff to make simple behavioural changes can result in a significant reduction of a company’s total energy usage. It is like any behavioural change, once we become used to doing it, it becomes a habit, so it is a win-win situation for everyone.

So it is back to school for many of us – we need to break the old habits of the past and introduce new ones which will help us all contribute to a greener way of life.

As a helping hand I have listed some useful hints and tips from the Carbon Trust below.

Hope you find them useful and let me know if you notice a difference!

Lisa


TIPS FROM THE CARBON TRUST:

Switch off lights in empty rooms
You could cut your lighting costs by as much as 15 per cent, just by making sure you turn off lights in rooms and corridors that aren’t being used.

Don’t turn up the heating unless necessaryTry to keep your thermostat at 19c. Your heating costs go up eight per cent for every 1c increase.

Maintain equipment properly
If you don’t regularly check your heating equipment, you could be adding as much as 10 per cent to your heating bill without knowing it.

Vending machines or kettles?
It is cheaper to provide a kettle for staff working outside normal business hours than to continue running a drinks vending machine.

Turning off computers
A single computer and monitor left on 24 hours a day will cost over £50 a year. Switching them off out of hours and enabling standby features could reduce this to £15 a year and prolong the lifespan of equipment.

Lighten up
Replacing high wattage filament lamps or tungsten halogen lamps with compact fluorescent lamps or metal halide lamps will give energy savings of 65 to 75 percent.

Fix compressed air leaks
Compressed air leaking through a single 3mm hole could cost you almost £700 a year.

And don’t forget my top 5 tips:
• Reduce your energy costs by identifying your building’s consumption and make changes or implement control systems.

• Build an energy efficiency team - display your energy performance, improvements or inefficiencies and educate your team on how they can help to build a better energy efficiency programme.

• Instigate change in your people and processes - be transparent about what you are trying to achieve and what you are actually doing. Show them where they can help and how they can help. Dashboards and software packages that are easy to use and interactive are a good place to start.

• Showcase your green credentials - display your conformance to energy legislation through dashboards and software packages.

• Save money... make money - reduce your energy consumption and you will save money. It is fact, being green will also make you money, as businesses are looking for a ‘green’ supply chain.

Good Luck!

Southwold School: The t-mac Generation

A teacher friend called me recently after she read an article on our involvement with Southwold Primary School and EDF Energy in East London.

“Your fancy gadget paid for two extra full-time teachers?!” she said, “How did you do that?” she asked.

So I told her:
In September 2009, we installed a t-mac system at the school which monitored energy indicators such as room temperature, the flow and return of boiler temperatures and lux levels. This ensured the school was able to control systems that used a lot of energy such as their lighting, mains electricity, mains gas and the boiler through an interactive dashboard that made sure the meter readings did not exceed pre-set levels.

One of the other benefits of implementing the control system was the introduction of frost protection to the school’s boiler system, where the t-mac device reacts by bringing a dormant boiler back to life before it reaches critical temperatures. Frost protecting the boiler made sure that the boiler did not freeze during cold nights by simply monitoring the room temperature and turning the boiler system back on when necessary, even if it had already been switched off by a timer.

For the pupils and teachers at Southwold School, this turned out to be an early Christmas present!

With the winter that we had at the end of last year, the frost protection system made sure the school avoided falling victim to a broken heating system. Unfortunately other businesses across the UK with insufficient prevention systems in place weren’t so lucky.

The savings gained through our t-mac system brought significant financial benefits to the school (namely a 35 per cent saving on their energy bills in just 10 months) and achieved another aim of showcasing the importance of energy management through a custom-made AMR dashboard to the kids. They were able to visualise the energy they were actually using whilst they were using it.

Teachers at Southwold Primary School were able to demonstrate and talk through the benefits of energy management and the positive impact it had on their school.

It seemed my friend was certainly inspired by the benefits to both her school and her pupils. She also asked me if I had a gadget to help her control her pupils as easily!

It’s important to start early and raise awareness of energy saving amongst young people and the future generation. The energy we use and the way we live our lives now is a far cry away from when myself and my teacher friend were at school, just 20 to 30 years ago.

It is now vital that children from a young age realise the importance of conserving energy and understanding exactly how we get the most out of the energy we use.

If you would like to know more about the work t-mac Technologies and EDF did at Southwold School, please visit our media centre by clicking here.

A rant about air conditioning set points

I visit many clients throughout the UK who ask me how our product can help them save energy. One of the common issues I encounter which could help them in their quest is the lack of understanding on how to set air conditioning set points.

If I visit a site in winter the air conditioning set point will be set to

30°C,and a site in summer will find the air conditioning set point

set to 16°C.

For the engineers amongst us, we know that these systems will never reach these set points and even if they could the resulting temperature would be far too uncomfortable to work in!

Personally, I only like 30°C if I’m sitting on a beach with a beer!

Worse still these huge fluctuations in set point control waste a large amount of energy and they also reduce the overall lifetime of the compressor in the outdoor unit.

In my view there are a couple of simple ways to solve this problem:

1. Educate the users how to operate the air conditioning system properly.
This is fine if the user understands the engineering principles behind the system and can grasp the concept, however many people may not understand, or more often than not they are simply not interested. Also it might not be possible to educate every single user, for example an a/c controller in a meeting room could be used by any number of people including visitors to the organisation. Educating every visitor as they enter the building is clearly not feasible.

2. Put a sign on the a/c controller telling people how to use it.
This option is a very simple and cheap way to educate people. The problem is people don’t like to read instructions and even then they may not like the temperature you’ve told them it should be, and ignore it.

3. Lock out the a/c controls altogether.
A little known fact is that most manufacturers of a/c units have special codes that can be typed into the wall controller that lock the user changing the set point altogether. The user can still turn the a/c on or off but can’t change the set point.

This is a handy little feature that stops a huge wastage of energy but what it doesn’t stop is users complaining! Users like to be in control, and as soon as it’s been locked to 21°C they’re too cold and really want it at 22°C.

4. Allow for set point limiting.
This is my favourite technique but is usually the hardest to implement as it requires an intelligent controller (like a t-mac BMS) to interface with the air conditioning unit.

This technique gives the user a certain amount of control and usually stops them from complaining. The principle is simple, it only allows set point control between two points such as 20°C and 22°C. If the user is too hot or too cold they still can change the set point but can’t put it on a silly temperature like 16°C!!

Whilst telling people or leaving notes on how to use the a/c seems like simple and straightforward options to reduce energy wastage, ultimately people are only human... and humans often forget and ignore! But as degrees centigrade amount to pounds sterling, ensuring you have the most effective system in place to control your a/c device pays dividends in the long run!

Educate, Encourage and Empower: Building Efficiency at Work

Last month I visited the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) headquarters in London to speak at their ‘System Integration for Intelligent Buildings’ seminar.

There was a mix of people from various industry sectors, all meeting for the same reason – to find a suitable solution to the growing pressures for safe, productive workplaces and leisure venues that don’t damage the environment. The seminar highlighted that the focus seems to have returned to building design and systems that must be Integrated, Intelligent and Sustainable in order to be effective.

Whilst integrating systems to make a building more intelligent is an obvious technical solution, what many often overlook is that these systems can only be sustainable and effective if they are maintained and used effectively by the building occupiers... people.

Human behaviour can have a significant impact on building performance. Today, people place a great emphasis on comfort and satisfactory working conditions. Our research shows that in the 1980’s people were happy to work at temperatures around 15°C, today this has risen to 21°C. And rightly so, cutting back on energy usage no longer means having to compromise on our expectations, the comfort factor is now a pre-requisite for working conditions. The answer is simple, just make sure people are aware of the energy they use, and how they can help to improve and cut carbon emissions

Ensuring staff are aware of the amount of energy they use can have a positive influence on a company’s overall savings. Investing time on educating staff can lead to a noticeable reduction on fuel bills as employees learn how their behaviour impacts the organisation overall and how they can make small changes in their behaviour to make big changes (for the better) in their energy consumption.

Little actions can make a big difference both for the negative and the positive where enegy consumption is concerned. Ignorance is expensive, education is key. Understanding that overriding set building controls (like heating), turning the air conditioning on at the same time as the heating is running, or heating to 28C instead of 22C, forgetting to change time clocks for daylight saving times or bank holidays, or simply propping a door open or forgetting to close a window can all contribute to the 18 per cent of carbon emissions that is frittered away from commercial buildings every year – not to mention the thousands of pounds.

In November last year we encouraged one of our clients, The City Inn hotel in Westminster, to be proactive in their approach to integrating staff behaviour to work with building systems. The hotel invited their staff to a ‘show and tell’ session where they demonstrated how much energy had been consumed in their conference room over a set period of time, followed by an explanation of why these levels were so high and what – ideally - they should be. They also highlighted the monetary and environmental benefits being more aware they would bring to the organisation.

Staff became motivated almost instantly with regular praise for their efforts as a team and the company encouraged staff to celebrate these significant changes. Their efforts seemed more valued and worthwhile and not only resulted in more willingness to adapt to a new system but also to a 30 per cent reduction in the energy they consumed in their conference room. A phenomenal improvement!

The hotel’s achievement only exemplifies that integrating controls AND people can help businesses meet green targets and the overall 20 per cent reduction in carbon emissions needed (asset by the government). They work together.. if they are integrated.

My top tips for business is to:

UNDERSTAND – what people want and when

EDUCATE – staff on the best way to use systems

EMPOWER – staff or let them see the benefits of their actions.

Last chance to reduce your carbon footprint in 2010

The clock is ticking for you to submit your entry to our ‘win a t-mac’ competition which draws to a close this Friday, 22nd January!

t-mac Technologies Ltd have joined forces with Water Energy and Environment to host the competition to win a free t-mac energy monitoring and control system worth up to £10,000.

There is still time for you and your business to be in with a chance of winning, so I hope everyone reading this has already submitted their entries... if not make sure you click here and enter now.

If you have made the commitment to do something about reducing your carbon footprint this year then this could be the kick start you need to save energy and money. The lucky winner of our competition will receive a t-mac device, complete with custom front-end dashboard which displays energy reduction activities.

We’ve had some great responses already and it might seem like a shamless plug, but it really is a fantastic prize and we want to make sure it goes to a good home.

We are asking entrants to tell us in no more than 200 words why their business deserves a t-mac and so far we’ve been amazed at how enthusiastic businesses have been.

If you win, the t-mac team will fully install the device with energy metering and monitoring peripherals and energy management software and dashboards. The winning business will also receive an online training seminar for staff which takes them through how to use their t-mac to get the most from the system.

In addition to all of this, the proud new owner of a t-mac will also have access to a dedicated webpage which enables constant monitoring and control of facilities and will receive a monthly call from the t-mac team for a year to discuss the use of the system – ensuring it is utilised to the max by the winner.

A useful belated Christmas present for one lucky business and a fine start to 2010!

Entering is easy, just log on to www.energyonline.co.uk or our website www.t-mac.co.uk and tell us in no more than 200 words why your business deserves a t-mac. Whether it is the commitment to reduce business costs in 2010 or the new-year resolution to be greener, or both, this could be the perfect prize to help you along your way (terms and conditions apply). t-mac wants to hear from you!

So what are you waiting for? Remember – if you are not in you can’t win! Good luck!