Britannia Building Society banks on BACnet
Following 19 years servicing the building controls at the headquarters of Britannia Building Society, Building Environment Control (BEC) has upgraded the building control system and replaced it with user-friendly technology to save energy and help reduce running costs.
BEC designed and installed an automated building-controls solution based on native BACnet technology made by Delta Controls of Canada.
Delta hardware was selected because it supports BACnet open-protocol communication with other vendors’ devices. This allowed for a natural progression from the old system to the new, which was easy to commission and did not affect the building operation and its occupants.
The upgrade includes a more efficient HVAC system operated by VAV controllers. By retrofitting frequency inverters to fans in the ventilation plant, BEC facilitated the variable-speed control of fans to optimise efficiency, reducing energy consumption by over 38% across the ventilation plant.
The BACnet control software has a web-based front end that connects the building-automation system to Britannia’s wide-area network (WAN). This is unusual for financial organisations, where there are stringent restrictions to the WAN because of perceived threats to network security.
Barry Goodfellow, maintenance manager at Britannia’s headquarters, says, ‘As well as the energy and cost savings Britannia has seen, we can also be assured that the open-protocol technology will not become obsolete in a few years’ time.’
