Improving energy efficiency in facilities management

Much like any other industry, facility managers are facing increasing operational cost pressures and, as a result, are looking to energy efficiency improvements as a method to tackle this. But no longer are simple energy-monitoring solutions sufficient in achieving significant cuts in consumption. In today’s environment, integrated and cloud-based solutions are the next step in improving operations and delivering real value for businesses.

While still a relatively new concept, for some time the industry has recognised the value of interoperability, or integrated solutions. McGraw-Hill Construction’s 2007 ‘Interoperability in the Construction Industry SmartMarket Report’ surveyed architects, engineers, contractors and owners, finding that one in five perceived energy reduction as a business advantage of integrated solutions. An example of an integrated solution combines building automation systems with a smart building management system, enabling commercial property owners to monitor multiple sites at one time and finetune building performance to a degree not possible via human capabilities alone.

Although much of the value of this approach is delivered through energy savings, energy and operations are often two sides of the same coin. Because improving energy efficiency is based on finding abnormal events and conditions in a building, creating energy savings can also result in better operational outcomes. For example, we recently helped one of our hotel customers find and fix issues with its thermostats that, if left unresolved, could have impacted guest satisfaction. By analysing temperature sensor readings, we found that some room thermostats were not operating correctly and that one of the hotel’s restaurants was being over-cooled. Fixing these problems kept patrons comfortable, while delivering significant energy and cost savings for the customer.

But it’s not just improvements to operational costs and performance that increasing energy efficiency can yield. The adaptation of integrated technology in the construction marketplace has gone a long way to helping building owners have their properties green rated. For example, data presented in the Australian Property Institute’s 2011 report ‘Building Better Returns’ shows that a green premium in value for office buildings corresponded to the NABERS (National Australian Built Environment Rating System) rating. This saw the 5 star NABERS energy rating delivering a 9% green premium in value and the 3-4.5 star NABERS energy ratings delivering a 2-3% green premium in value. The report also noted that buildings with a higher rating have lower vacancy rates, lower rental incentives and reduced outgoings.

Traditionally, achieving results like this would require a variety of tools to be installed on site and an operator to sift through large volumes of information to try to work out where the best opportunities are. However, giving complicated diagnostic tools to a facility manager who may be uncertain about how to manage energy may not be the best approach. They may notice one or two abnormalities but they are unlikely to be able to provide a comprehensive recommendation.  With the pressure of day-to-day issues, the more challenging task of dedicating hours at a time to analysing building performance can often slip to the bottom of the ‘to do’ list.

In this situation, outsourcing the analysis rather than the BMS operation may be the answer. With the growth of cloud computing, smart building management systems have, for many customers, finally become financially feasible. A smart building management system can transmit data generated from hundreds of buildings to a single command centre, where facilities professionals use complex automated algorithms to monitor equipment performance. With today’s affordable high-capacity computing, a company can use one smart building management service to monitor and control hundreds of facilities around the world.

The combination of cloud-based analytical tools with cloud-based energy experts to analyse the information can be very effective. It allows a rigorous and comprehensive approach to be applied quickly and cost effectively, and the results are speaking for themselves.