Intelligent Building Management Emerges As Big Opportunity

IT partners have identified IBMS as a big opportunity because of a strong trend to integrate once-separate systems like access control, fire safety, video surveillance, rodent control and incident response.

According to MarketsandMarkets, the Indian intelligent building management system (IBMS) market is expected to reach $1,891 million by 2016 at a CAGR of 25 percent from $621 million in 2011.

Many IT partners have identified IBMS solutions as a big opportunity because of a strong trend to integrate once-separate systems such as access control, fire safety, video surveillance, rodent control and incident response.

Says Manoj Bisht, CEO of the Delhi-based MK Infosystems, “Many corporate hubs in metro cities are going in for IBMS solutions. We are also seeing demand from segments like PSUs, hospitality and real-estate.” 

Partners who have ventured into IBMS says it’s a natural progression and is very profitable compared to the IT business. “While the IT systems integration business offers about 15 percent margins, IBMS solutions provide 25 percent margins or more,” reveals Moin Shaikh, Director of the Surat-based Innovative Telecom & Softwares.

He says that partners can leverage their systems integration skills to target existing large customers demanding centralized control to enter the IBMS space. “Partners need to gain skills to develop software interfaces to integrate various components of IBMS. It’s essential to add skills around electrical systems, instrumentation and process control. Also, it’s better to target customers before they execute their building plans.”

During the last fiscal, Innovative implemented eight IBMS projects which contributed about 20 percent to its Rs 115 crore revenue in FY2012-13. While most customers were from the gems & jewelry vertical, some were from manufacturing and infrastructure companies. “In the last two years large gems & jewelry exporters have been compelled to deploy IBMS solutions for Kimberley Process compliance,” explains Shaikh.

For MK Infosystems, the IBMS business is expected to grow manifold. “Our IBMS business has grown 100 percent YoY in the last fiscal. This fiscal too we expect 100 percent growth,” says Bisht.

MK Infosystems executed four large IBMS projects in the last fiscal including one for C-DOT and another for ONGC. “We have partnered with a large SI to do the installation and integration work for their IBMS projects,” informs Bisht. “We are also doing projects for our own customers. In the current fiscal we are working with the SI partner on a large IBMS and data center project for UIDAI in Bengaluru where the installation services revenue is Rs 2.5 crore. We are also implementing IBMS for Duet Hotels and a large real-estate player.”

 By: Amit Singh

 

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Building Code Revision Launches In California Toward Zero Net Energy Buildings

Building Code Revision Launches In California Toward Zero Net Energy Buildings Article By: Bill Roth at Triple Pundit

Starting in 2014, California is implementing a tsunami of building code revisions called Title 24. These revised building codes will move California’s residential and commercial buildings toward Zero Net Energy (ZNE). In a ZNE building, the annual energy consumption is equal to its annual production of renewable energy. Under Title 24, all new residential construction is to be ZNE by 2020 with all new commercial buildings achieving this ZNE goal by 2030.

Title 24 moves building design toward “comprehensive building solutions.” This building design approach first focuses upon reducing energy consumption through the integration of smart and energy efficient technologies. The final design step after reducing the building’s energy consumption is to install onsite renewable energy generation like solar panels.

Existing California buildings heading toward ZNE, too

As these new codes are being analyzed by the construction and real estate industries, there is a growing realization that Title 24 will apply to existing buildings that implement threshold-sized remodeling or repurposing construction projects. In addition, California’s Governor Jerry Brown has authorized through an executive order that state agencies shall take measures towards achieving ZNE for 50 percent of the square footage of existing state-owned buildings by 2025.

Major shift in utility financial incentives

In coordination with these code revisions, the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) is revising the financial incentives offered through utilities to encourage energy efficiency investments by building owners. The CPUC is reducing or eliminating past financial incentives for energy efficiency investments that are now mandated by Title 24. In 2014, a new set of financial incentives are being launched that support comprehensive building solutions.

Title 24′s increased focus on plug-in controls

Plug-in loads like computers, mobile phones, tablets, TVs, refrigerators, lamps, etc. have grown to represent at least one-third of the electricity consumption in a commercial or residential building. To address the growth in plug-in loads, Title 24 will require that all 120-volt receptacles be controlled. This will enable electrical loads like computers and printers to be truly turned off at the receptacle. Turning power off at the receptacle will reduce “phantom power consumption” where electronics continue to draw power even when their users have turned them “off.” These control systems will also enable smarter building operations that will allow for demand reduction actions during critical-peak electricity supply time periods.

Title 24′s lighting revolution

Title 24 will also accelerate deployment of more efficient lighting technologies and their integration into a smart building. Title 24 codifies the integration of electric lighting and natural lighting as a comprehensive (and lower energy consumption) building solution. For example, Title 24 mandates automated daylighting. Automated daylighting uses sensors to measure the amount of natural light available in a monitored space and then uses this data to adjust electric lighting to achieve a targeted cumulative illumination level. The obvious benefit is lower electric bills by reducing electric lighting use in spaces that are adequately lit by daylighting. The other key benefit is reduced greenhouse gas emissions if the building’s lighting is supplied from fossil-fueled generators.

Another significant Title 24 lighting change is the requirement that non-residential buildings over 10,000 sq. ft. have automated demand response lighting systems. These demand response lighting systems will receive signals from utility smart meters or similar communication sources when the electricity grid is reaching a critical peak supply period. Under Title 24, when the automated demand response lighting system receives a critical peak signal, it will initiate pre-programmed reductions of at least 15 percent.

Click here for a summary of key links to government agencies and more information on Title 24.

For trade professionals, this is a valuable link to itemized details on code revisions, related building lighting, building envelop, mechanical, process loads and solar.

California’s big bet on smart, clean and renewable technologies

Title 24 is yet another big bet being placed by California that smarter, cleaner and renewable technologies will be the business winners of the 21st century. Unlike most other states, California does offer reduced taxes and direct financial incentives to win the relocation or new construction of manufacturing or industrial plants. California’s economic development strategy uses the State’s massive buying power as the ninth largest economy in the world to create a market demand for technology innovations that have produced successes like Google, Twitter and Solar City.

For example, California’s A Million Solar Roofs program that offered financial incentives for the installation of rooftop solar systems has accelerated economies of scale that have driven solar panel prices below $1 per watt. The result is solar power prices that are increasingly competitive with grid-supplied electricity and, in most cases, will lower electric bills for consumers that install rooftop solar systems. California used this same strategy to generate sales for hybrid cars like the Prius and is using this strategy to drive the sales growth of electric-hybrid and electric cars including the Tesla manufactured in Fremont California.

Title 24 is California’s strategy for growing the economies of scale for energy efficiency technologies to drive down their price to consumers. If Title 24 does create economies of scale for smart and energy efficiency technologies, then California will have sparked a building technology revolution on the same scale as the revolutions now taking place in information technologies, solar power and hybrid/electric cars. The benefits to California will be lower electric bills for consumers and sales growth for the California companies that were on the cutting edge of Title 24′s mass market adoption of ZNE-enabling technologies.

Bill Roth is an economist and the Founder of Earth 2017. He coaches business owners and leaders on proven best practices in pricing, marketing and operations that make money and create a positive difference. His book, The Secret Green Sauce, profiles business case studies of pioneering best practices that are proven to win customers and grow product revenues. Follow him on Twitter: @earth2017

This summary draws from Bill Roth’s coaching program for trade professionals entitled “How To Grow Sales From Title 24 Code Revisions” that was conducted on November 5, 2013 at the San Diego Gas & ElectricEnergy Innovation Center. 

Related articles

• Title 24 Will Revolutionize the Financing of Building Efficiency Investments (triplepundit.com)
• Building homes that make more power than they take (bigstory.ap.org)
• California Seen Beating Renewable Energy Generation Goal – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)

Coppertree Analytics- Facility Manager

Manage Alarms

Coppertree Insights

The word ‘insight’ carries the idea of a clear and deep perception of a situation. Coppertree Analytics’ Insights are designed to give you a different pair of eyes to look at your facility. Insights give you an awareness and understanding to:

• The past: see what changed in your facility yesterday
• The present: see how your facility is performing today
• The future: see what changes are needed in your facility tomorrow

Mobile Insights

Insights can be accessed via tablets, desktops and any device with a web browser. Or better yet, Coppertree can deliver them to your personnel on duty directly to their mobile devices.

Fault Detection

Our insights are the basis for a more pro-active approach to facility management. Coppertree Analytics’ sophisticated engines are continually examining data from building automation systems, executing fault detection and diagnostic rules and engaging algorithms to perform statistical and pattern analyses. Whether you choose to use our growing library of analytical rules or to create your own rules, setting them up to run on your site is straight forward. once they are set up, they run automatically whether you are looking or not.

Planned Maintenance

Prioritize Time

Traditional scheduled preventative maintenance programs rely on an exhaustive re-commissioning process requiring many man-hours with the final outcome being a deficiency report detailing problems and required fixes. Further man-hours are then required to perform the corrective measures. Coppertree Analytics’ intent is to raise this process to a new level by generating performance reports or score cards from the data collected. This information will help you pinpoint specific problem areas and prioritize the work required to take care of them, effectively automating the report creation process.

Efficient Manpower

Shifting to a planned maintenance approach, the re-commissioning man-hours required in traditional programs can be re-allocated to the man-hours required to take action, hence maximizing your resources, increasing your efficiency and gaining control of what goes on in your facility.

Maintain Performance

Besides performance reports, Coppertree Analytics’ integrity portfolio of services continually probes your building automation system with an array of fault-detection-and-diagnostic rules to give you insights into your building operations. The key in maintaining performance is continuous auditing. It is as if you had a commissioning agent perpetually examining your building and advising on any areas of concern.

Reporting

Golden Standard

As a facility manager, generating reports is not the end in itself; it is the change from the ideal condition that is important. For instance, would you benefit from a detailed report that tells you how your building automation system has changed since the last time a ‘snapshot’ was taken during the initial commissioning? It might be tedious to generate what we call a golden standard report manually, but Coppertree can deliver it to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly through constant comparison between the current state and a Golden Standard you define.

KPI

Coppertree Analytics’ goal is to provide reports that are easy to understand, appropriate for the audience reviewing them and readily available when needed… all this to help you achieve your goals. Key performance indicator reports are excellent auditing tools to measure the overall success or failure of your facility to achieve a specific target. Is like getting a score card for your building and showing you where you need to direct your resources.

Live Trends

Coppertree report libraries range from detailed reports of specific systems or points to summary reports and executive reports available for viewing via web portals on desktops, tablets and mobile devices. The challenge is always to keep your reports up-to-date. Coppertree Analytics’ integration with the building automation system, and it’s abilty to overlay live trend logs on historical data all reporting can be accomplished seamlessly.

If you would like to learn more please visit: Coppertree here or contact a Setpoint Systems Corporation Account manager here for a live Demo!

Measure Utilities

 

Trends

Of course your goal is to conserve energy. However measuring your savings from individual sources can be challenging. With the Curator software suite, you can track, estimate, and compare your energy conservation efforts with previous periods. Compare performance between years, months, weeks, days, or even by the hour through any period, or baseline, of your choosing. Receive Copppertree insights directly on your mobile device when your current energy consumption exceeds expectation.

Bill Management

Tracking your utilities is the first component of an effective energy management strategy. Coppertree’s Curator software provides you with an easy way to organize your utility bills. Import CSV data from historical sources, enter your bills manually, and insert manual readings for comparison. Input vendor information to fully customize your local rate structure. Add physical sub meters to your data gathering engine for tenant billing or create virtual meters from mechanical system data for complete energy monitoring of every component.

Compare Readings

Do you measure utilities manually? You no longer have to wonder whether your energy provider miscalculated your bill, or whether your meter requires calibration because Curator allows you to compare manual readings to the automated data that you receive from your Building Automation System. Add the comparison to your reports through downloadable visuals and tables.

Conserve Energy

Baselines

How can you set energy conservation targets if you don’t know what you are comparing with? Comparing with a previous period or last year is good, but not the best solution. The Curator software suite provides the best, with the tools that allow you to create custom baselines for your facility in compliance with the IPMVP protocol (Option C). Evaluate and report on the energy consumption of your facilities in real-time, and compare these to your baseline to have an instantaneous measure of energy retrofit performance.

Carbon Accounting

Stakeholders have carbon-reduction goals and the general public expects annual sustainability reports from you. Impress your colleagues in management and public relations by showing them yearly, monthly, daily, weekly, or even hourly carbon emission info associated with real-time energy use. All that is required is a simple setup and Curator automatically translates energy usage into quantifiable, and reportable, greenhouse gas emissions.

Instant Notification

It is hard to know exactly when your energy will surpass peak demand and accrue additional charges. It is also hard to detect faulty pieces of equipment leading to overconsumption of energy. Curator provides customizable insights sent instantly to your computer or mobile device whenever energy conservation is being compromised, allowing you to take action the instant problems occur.

Demonstrate ROI

Reports

You are in charge of communicating ROI to your stakeholders and it isn’t always easy. We know it can take hours to create a report so Curator allows you to easily view, gather, and collect the data you need for reporting though Coppertree’s automated reporting tool. Create reports showing instantaneous savings and monthly summaries. Compare with other buildings and baselines, and send these reports automatically to stakeholders. Build exactly the report you need to easily illustrate your building’s ongoing efficiencies.

Dashboards

Curator puts you in charge by allowing you to fully customize your energy dashboard. Keep tabs on specific departments, buildings, or meters and visually compare them with the baselines you define. You are in control and can determine which information is important to you. After you decide on the information to be shown, share the dashboard with building occupants so you can educate your colleagues, show stakeholders ROI using live data, or present the dashboard during presentations and conferences with your clients.

Rate of Return

See the impact on your budget and cash-flow to determine the net present value and ROI to verify whether you are making sound investment. Curator’s built-in rate of return calculation tool allows you to have easy access to all the energy, cost, and savings data in one place to help you with decision making regarding equipment upgrades, retrofitting projects, or any other energy improvement initiatives.