BEMS installations achieve 28% savings
To help Cardiff Council achieve its target of reducing carbon emissions by 60% across its estate by 2018, BSC (Building Services Controls) has been appointed to work as a partner and assisting in specifying an effective building-management system that can be rolled out across its site portfolio.
The council developed a refurbishment project across 90 sites, including a number of schools and offices. At the heart of the project was the need for an effective BEMS to help drive energy savings and achieve a quicker payback than more costly improvements.
A staged programme to replace existing controls across the council’s sites over three years was carried out to replace existing systems with Siemens Desigo equipment. Already energy savings of 28% have been achieved using the control systems alone.
The new system can be operated by school staff on site and also remotely by the council’s energy team. Information is viewed in graphical format using a web browser.
Much of the existing controls infrastructure was retained — including control panels, wiring, valves, actuators and IT networks.
Council staff can remotely monitor alarms, temperature, operating hours and holiday periods. It is estimated that there has been a 17% reduction in on-site visits since the installation of the new systems.
Parameters can be set for heating and hot-water system, with alarms coming into effect if limits are reached. This enables simple identification of where and when energy may be being wasted so that action can be taken.
Alarms are also raised if there are maintenance issues with equipment such as switches or pumps so action can be taken before there is a substantial impact on the efficiency of a system.
Common standards are set across sites where appropriate to achieve energy savings. An example is pasteurising a school’s hot water every day an hour before it is required by the kitchens for washing up so that the energy used is put to good use.
Alarms can also be raised if an item of plant is put into manual over-ride, so it might waste energy.
Run times can be extended remotely as required.
Paul Colston, carbon-reduction officer with the council, comments, ‘A key element of the success of the programme has been the engagement of staff in the schools. Key members of staff have been trained to ensure the system performs as efficiently as possible. In fact, many schools have really embraced the efficiency drive and implemented additional measures such as stripping back heating and hot-water system hours to ensure they do not waste energy unnecessarily.’
Future plans include installing systems in other types of building and using the BEMS to control lighting.
Paul Colston adds, ‘Another great benefit of the system is that it shows the savings achieved by capital investment improvements such as new doors and windows. Therefore, it has proven to be instrumental in helping us to report back on return on investment for any measures implemented across sites.
