Historically, implementation of HVAC controls required the installation of a communication network between all controlled devices.  The network enabled all of the devices to exchange information with the EMS to create a control environment.  Devices send information to the EMS such as temperature, humidity, occupancy, amperage, flow and status.  The EMS processes this information to send back commands for occupancy, operation, and control.   All of this vital information travelled by wires which were often expensive to install and costly to repair.  In existing buildings, the installation of the communications wiring can be expensive and messy.

Now, energy systems can be designed that eliminate much of the network cabling.   All of the necessary components for a typical system – sensors, switches, actuators, and thermostats – are now available from a variety of manufactures.  While the wireless systems are slightly more expensive, the labor savings can often make them worth it.

While there are numerous wireless technologies, two initiatives have gained traction at many of the major device manufactures – Zigbee and Enocean.  Both of these systems can be thought of as “another flavor of WiFi.”  However, unlike WiFi, which was designed to move data quickly, Zigbee and Enocean are focused on reliability and minimal power consumption.  Reliable message delivery is critical to ensure occupant comfort – a lost occupancy signal could leave a building uncomfortable and / or inefficient.  Low power consumption reduces the need to change batteries.  Enocean devices are so efficient that they can normally don’t require batteries.

These systems have been around for several years so the big kinks have been worked out.   As the volume of wireless devices increases, the prices for these devices continue to fall.

The revolution is coming, let us help you gain advantage from this exciting new technology.

I lost another can’t miss opportunity the other day.

I don’t like losing – especially when it’s an interesting project that I priced to win.  The worst part was that I lost the project to the fiercest competitor in the energy efficiency business . . . nothing.   Yes, nothing won again so yet another energy savings project won’t be built.  How can nothing keep winning?

“Nothing” is the word that I use to describe a project that does not get built because the customer doesn’t find the value of the energy savings sufficient to justify completing a given project.  In other words, the client has decided to do nothing.  Nothing is a very common competitor for energy savings contractors.  Perfectly good projects that have multiple beneficial impacts and sound returns on investment don’t get approved due to a perceived poor payback.

Losing that project has me thinking about what is a payback.  What are savings? How are they calculated?  What should be included? What shouldn’t? What’s a “good” payback?  I’ll treat these questions in this and a couple of future posts.  As with many things, there’s no absolutely agreed method for determining the payback for an energy project.  I will describe the generally acceptable practices and also discuss optional methods.  In this first post, we’ll review the math used for calculating energy savings to estimate project payback.

Simple Math

At its core, any energy conservation measure is designed to reduce utility consumption and therefore save money.  For most clients, the driver is saving money.  Even though there may be other benefits, normally, the only benefit that is used to analyze a project is the financial return.  Here’s the math:

Utility cost before – Utility cost afterwards = On-going savings.

Seems simple, but the devil is in the details.  The simple example that’s regularly trotted out involves two light bulbs.  A 60-watt incandescent is replaced with a 19-watt compact fluorescent (CFL), which saves 41 watts.  Multiply the 41 watts by the cost of power and the number of hours and you get the amount of savings:

Annual Electricity Savings = (Daily hours x 365 days/year) x Watts saved   x  Cost
.                                                                                    1000                                            kWh

There a couple of very important variables that go into our calculation that are critical.  The biggest is daily hours (or burn hours) which is perhaps the single most important assumption.  In our example, if the bulb is in an exit stair that is lit 24 / 7 and electricity cost $0.10 / kWh, then the project saves $36 per year.  However, if the light’s in a closet that is only opened 5 times a year for an hour, those savings evaporate down to a measly 2 cents.  As you can see getting burn hours correct is hugely important and often fudged.

Another critical variable is the estimated watts saved.  In our example, the math is very simple, or is it?  A CFL’s light output fades over its lifetime of 6000 – 15,000 hours.  If the reduction in output causes occupants to turn a lamp, the watts saved is dramatically lower.

The other significant variable in the calculation is the cost of electricity. Often, paybacks are calculated assuming a flat cost for energy, which is fine in many cases.  However, for a portfolio of buildings each one is likely to be on different rate.  Using a blanket rate across a portfolio is likely to deliver misleading results.  Also, is the customer on a flat rate or a time of use (TOU) tariff?  If TOU and the lights are mainly on at night, the savings calculations should use the night time rate.

And that’s just the simple calculation.  More robust analysis could include other factors such as maintenance costs, excess heat, environmental impact, and disposal costs.  I’ll look at those cost in future posts.

Informed clients are aware that the Niagara Framework was designed to facilitate the connection between dissimilar control networks.  When these clients call, they eagerly state the manufacturer’s name of their existing controls and ask for a price to connect their building.  Unfortunately, the manufacturer’s name alone isn’t all that’s needed to determine if it’s possible.  Very specific details about the model and age of the system are needed.  Even after we’ve got all the data, the answer comes down to the availability, capability and cost of a driver.

The “driver” in question isn’t a chauffeur, a golf club or a tool used to tighten screws.  Instead it’s a piece of software that’s needed to translate the control signals from the existing EMS into a format that another system can understand.  Think of it like Google Translate – you enter Italian and the translator outputs English.  Ideally, like Google Translate, a driver understands both languages perfectly well and can instantly communicate a message from one language to the other.  Unfortunately like language translation, it’s never that easy.

Just as the word “driver” can have multiple meanings in English, controls communications signals in one system may not have an exact parallel in another system.  Worse yet, controls manufacturers historically designed their systems so that they could not be accessed without proprietary tools of their own making.  The thinking was to lock up a building system so that the incumbent company could create a recurring stream of purchases for any future needs.  (It’s a very profitable model for the service department too!)

Building owners found proprietary systems to be very expensive to maintain.  This was one of the principal reasons behind the creation of universal building network protocols such as BACNET and LONworks.  These protocols were developed to create standards for communications between systems.  In theory, all manufacturers’ devices could interconnect via these systems.  If only it were that simple.  Not all control system communication signals have a parallel in other systems; some manufactures have developed unique features for their control system.  Others only partially adopted the standard protocol, which means that the connections aren’t that simple.  (Note that LON generally works much better due to the fact that LON implementation is tightly controlled by Echelon, the company that makes the chip set used in every LON card.)

Some drivers work very well and easily translate information into a format that’s immediately useful on the other system.  Other drivers don’t work well at all, and some drivers don’t exist.  In many cases a hardware bridging device may be needed to complete the connection.  These devices may be made by the original equipment manufacturer or others, but none of them are cheap.

Unfortunately, some drivers and bridges don’t work well. It may be the quality of the software, but often this is due to the limitations of the older system being connected to.  For example, if the communication trunk of the existing BMS has a top speed of 4,800 baud (=0.0006 megabits per second), no driver can quickly deliver the data needed for the functions discussed at the beginning of this post.  Other drivers are badly hampered by the unwillingness of the BMS vendor to allow access to their system.  For older systems a driver may not exist at all.  Worse yet, some of the ones that work the worst are quite expensive.

Another option is to create a custom driver. There are several companies who are in the business of creating custom drivers.  I’m not a big believer in custom drivers unless there’s a huge payback for the project.  Custom drivers can be costly to acquire, possibly difficult to maintain and may deliver unacceptable performance.

No one wants to hear that they’ll have to replace their control system to get the functionality that they want. Even in a small building, this can be quite costly.  I hate having to tell clients that we can’t connect to their system – especially when other vendors say that they can – but if the “upgraded” system won’t meet their needs or won’t deliver an acceptable payback, well, it is what it is.  Before spending big $’s on a driver, make sure that it can deliver the goods.

Servidyne, Inc. (formerly Abrams Industries, Inc), which was sold in 2011, sprang from the roots of many businesses that came together over many, many years.  The company earned a reputation for delivering the best value to customers with absolute integrity.   It was built by the efforts and dreams of our founders and their successors.  I started my career at Abrams Industries in 1984, and I had the honor and privilege to work with many outstanding people over the next 27 years.

I have been asked how Servidyne came to have such a great culture of integrity, dependability and quality.  Today, as I start this new endeavor, I hope that I can build an organization with a zeal similar to the one that we inherited from our fathers.  It’s easy to say that Control Dynamix will always deliver high quality work, on-time and at a fair price, but to achieve that lofty goal will require diligence and dedication.  Great reputations are earned through a focus on great work, not great intentions.

Servidyne / Abrams was renowned as a trusted partner and a supportive employer throughout its 86 year history first as general contractors and finally as energy efficiency experts.  Note that after our strategic shift to focus on energy efficiency, the company was almost entirely staffed by new people.  Even so, the company’s commitment to do the right thing remained constant even though the company had little resemblance to its roots in 1925.

I give much of the credit for the unbending moral clarity to my predecessors.    Our founder A. R. Abrams and his sons Bernie and Eddie forged a formal company philosophy that was printed in the company’s annual report every year.  When I was young, I found it to be antiquated, but now I read it and see in it the essence of the upstanding corporate culture that we enjoyed.

It would be wrong not to give credit to the other companies that formed the roots of Servidyne’s energy business.  We seeded the energy offerings through the acquisition of several leading businesses: Servidyne Systems, Wheatstone Energy, BPE and iTendant.  Those companies contributed their own corporate “DNA” to the mix.  However, the resulting company retained an absolute focus on doing its best for its clients, employees and community that remained constant and in modern business, unique.

I’m trying to write a philosophy for Control Dynamix.  (Isn’t every company supposed to have a vision, mission, etc.?)  I don’t know if the old Abrams philosophy is competitive or politically correct for a company in 2012, but I want to reprint here as a reminder to myself to honor the legacy of a great company.

Abrams Philosophy

Make a profit so that the Company will remain financially sound.

Help to develop the people in our organization to achieve their maximum potential in a climate that creates good working conditions, mutual trust and happiness.

Encourage our people to practice thrift, to take an active interest in their church or synagogue, community projects and government and to be good citizens.

Manufacture products and provide services of the highest quality, so that we may merit the respect, confidence and loyalty of our customers.

Be a source of strength to our customers and suppliers, conducting all of our transactions with them with fairness.

Plan and carry out all of our activities so that the Company can expand its leadership and be regarded as a model in industry.

I tip my hat to the ethics reflected in these words, and I will measure Control Dynamix against them in the years ahead.

= Time to get mobile –Tridium has finally created mobile Px pages that actually work for today’s devices.  3.7 will allow application engineers to quickly create views that have a user interface that will be familiar to mobile users.  The number of widgets is limited in this release, but this is a tremendous improvement over hacked looking hx pages or sinking time into creating a custom app for iPad, Android, and Windows mobile.

= Those who don’t study history are condemned to repeat it – 3.7 promises to improve the ability for Niagara application engineers to create informative comparison charts.  This version will allow multiple histories to be displayed simultaneously on one chart.  Tools will allow histories to be summed to create virtual meters.  API’s will allow this data to be pulled out for analysis outside of the framework.

= Feeling more secure – 3.7 adds two very important security enhancements that are dear to corporate and government IT departments several times.   There are tremendous improvements to ssl encryption for the Niagara framework.  Previously only web traffic could be ssl encrypted, but now connections between stations can secured by ssl.  To facilitate administration, tools were added for managing trusts and certificates. Password security administration is greatly improved.  Password can be set to expire periodically, and users can be required to change them to a new, unique password.  Finally, passwords can be recovered by users with an email me function.

= New graphics and themes – Tridium will overhaul their standard graphics in 3.7 and add over 250 3-D and photo-realistic BAS images.  Memory optimization will mean that only graphics that are used will be stored on the JACE.  Also, Tridium announced the ability to create custom themes using a version of CSS that they call NSS (Niagara Style Sheet).  Users can now choose from standard themes or create their own.

= Better tools – 3.7 will enable application engineers to create custom objects that Tridium calls Synthetic Types which will enable non-coders to define modules without any Java code.  Px graphics can be bound to a certain type, which will speed development of larger projects.

= Virtuals to Virtuals – Now Niagara virtual machines can easily link to other Niagara VMs which will greatly enhance the framework’s scalability.  For projects that out grow their supervisor environment, it will be much easier to add capacity.

= Capacity based Licensing – You will soon see new models for licensing that are intended to simplify the licensing model to allow customers to only purchase as much capacity as needed.  Instead of buying infinite amounts of a feature, you’ll only pay for what you need.

= Write in script – Tridium announced Bajascript which will be familiar to javascript junkies.  This will facilitate more robust development by non-Niagara developers, which Tridium hopes will propel uses for the Niagara beyond the engineering office.

And that’s not all folks

There are other features, hardware scanning, an event service and more.  Equally exciting, is the promise of 3.8 early next year and 4.0 after that.  The Niagara platform is healthy and growing which definitely equals more than the sum of its parts.

If you build a better mouse trap. . .

Those who find energy dashboards invaluable have a strong point. Today’s systems are fantastic. The massive investment in “green” technology has certainly benefited the available toolset. Many GreenTech investors are looking to make their next fortune from the same source as their last – IP based information delivered to web browsers. These investors seek to develop a must-have killer app for buildings. Riches will be discovered from each building that subscribes to their service.

These dreams have led many creative people to build imaginative solutions. There are dashboards that can show you the current usage and GHG emissions; graphical building control displays that can reveal every facet of a building’s mechanical systems; meter data management solutions that allow benchmarking, alarming, and beautiful charts to reduce consumption and avoid peaks; and demand Response systems that allow buildings to generate revenue through peak time energy reduction.

The “worthless” crowd sees millions of dollars spent on information, and bemoan the energy conservation projects that could have been built with the same money. They argue that capital improvements will save money immediately without any behavioral changes. To them it’s simple: retro-commission, change out lights, install variable frequency drives – done.

I happen to think that both groups have valid points. The success of either will depend on the building, its occupancy, the operational staff, and most importantly, the quality of the systems installed. The best solution for two identical buildings may be very different depending on these factors. For example, installing efficient lighting in a conference center that is used only 6 hours a day will get a much lower payback than a 24/7 call center of the same size. Conversely for those same spaces, an advanced control system that connects the lighting and HVAC to the room’s schedule won’t save much for the 24/7 call center, but it can deliver meaningful results for a seldom used space. Obviously, the quality of the dashboard is significant, but so is the quality of project development for a capital project.

The most important variable in the estimate of the value of an energy dashboard is the people. While this may surprise some, this won’t come as a big shock to professionals in the space – many dashboards are never used. Information is worthless if no one sees it, and that’s what happens to the output of many systems. It’s important that dashboards provide useful and compelling information in an easy to understand format, but the interpretation and application of the data by building professionals is the determining factor in proving the benefits of the system.

Prudent owners today install advanced energy management systems, and if they don’t have on staff resources, they contract with service firms to manage the systems that manage their energy use. Dashboards can deliver tremendous savings to companies who treat that data like its money, which it actually is.