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Smart Systems Facilitate Sustainability Bright Green Buildings Boast Enhanced Asset Value
November, 2008
The Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) recently released a comprehensive analysis and compilation of case studies of green buildings that use intelligent building technologies to support environmental management and performance. The following excerpt from the report looks at the convergence that results in bright green buildings - Editor.
A bright green building is both intelligent and green. It uses both technology and process to create a facility that is safe, healthy and comfortable, and enables productivity and well-being for its occupants.
Fully networked systems achieve interaction across all systems, allowing them to work collectively to optimize a building's performance. Fully interoperable systems in these buildings tend to perform better, cost less to maintain, and leave a smaller environmental imprint than individual utilities and communication systems.
According to industry experts, building owners are not going to make any investment unless it has a return on investment (ROI). In developing a financial justification for investments in intelligent and green technologies, and assessing the potential return on that investment, it is necessary to consider new construction and retrofit projects separately because the requirements, and therefore the economic fundamentals, of the two types of projects are very different.
COSTS & PAYBACKS
In a new construction scenario, the cost of creating a green and intelligent building is often not that different than the costs associated with creating a traditional building. Certain aspects associated with intelligent technology and applications are actually less costly than traditional infrastructure. In the case of cabling, for example, labour costs are often lower where intelligent designs are used.
However, other technologies and equipment will require additional investment to integrate all of the components of the system. For example, integrating access controls systems with lighting and HVAC systems will cost more up front than installing disparate systems alone. Nevertheless, studies consistently show this initial investment in green and intelligent design and technology generally has a relatively short ROI period when compared to the anticipated usable life of the building.
Retrofits are frequently driven more than anything else by the desire to reduce energy costs. These are often cases where the existing technology or system in a building can be upgraded easily and the payback period is expected to be short.
Intelligent building features such as better monitoring and control of energy-intensive systems such as HVAC and lighting can provide for optimum performance and predictive maintenance needs, reducing both energy usage and operating expense. Reporting features assist in making decisions that make the building more efficient and reliable.
With one unified approach to monitoring facilities, buildings can change the underlying infrastructure without changing the enterprise level reporting mechanisms. This allows building owners to have a heterogeneous infrastructure that creates more competition between technology vendors, where they can begin to generate savings more quickly and can generate an ROI payback in two to three years rather than over the course of a decade.
Integrating utility bills into the enterprise asset management system, facility managers can further provide diagnostic information to facility managers, enabling them to take immediate action. In order to conserve energy - and money - it is imperative that proper information management architecture is in place, which makes the information applicable and definable.
Building owners typically perceive that green and intelligent buildings will cost more. In reality, however - and industry experts agree - green and intelligent buildings ultimately cost less. Typically, operations-related impacts account for more than 80% of life cycle impacts in buildings. Owners' operating costs are significantly lowered as a result of more efficient operations and better control, enhancing a building's asset value.
TECHNOLOGIES
As technology advances, and as information and communication expectations become more sophisticated, networking solutions both converge and automate divergent technologies to improve responsiveness, efficiency and performance. To achieve this, bright green buildings converge data, voice and video with security, HVAC, lighting and other electronic controls on a single network platform that facilitates user management, space utilization, energy conservation, comfort and system improvement. Bright green technologies include:
Converged Networks
Fully networked systems transcend integration to achieve interaction, in which the previously independent systems work collectively to optimize the building's performance and constantly create an environment that is most conducive the occupant's goals. Conventional buildings suffer from the inability to communicate and intelligently manage the large amount of data that they possess and generate. A converged network solution allows a higher level of connectivity for a variety of products from multiple manufacturers.
Integrated Building Control Systems
Programmed and computerized networks of electronic devices are employed for control and monitoring of systems such as HVAC, lighting, security, fire and life safety, and elevators. These solutions typically aim at optimizing the performance, start-up and maintenance of building systems and greatly increase the interaction of mechanical subsystems in buildings. This can be done remotely or from a centralized system with a minimum human-in-loop factor.
Structured Cabling Infrastructure
A structured cabling solution (SCS) integrates voice, data, video and other building systems. A SCS is an open system architecture that is standard based and can reduce construction costs for the cabling infrastructure by as much as 30%, and 25-60% for cabling related charges. The ability to run date signals and power to the devices over the same cabling infrastructure can be a dramatic cost saver in construction projects with high labour rates. The relative ease of expandability and adaptability for changes with minimal disruption are additional advantages.
Communications Infrastructure
A converged voice, video and data network streamlines the asset allocation, tracking and management process, which improves security and optimizes flexibility, and improves interaction and integration between various individual IP-based systems. Communications services help anticipate increasing demand for complex and integrated networks, and facilitate revenue generating differentials such as digital signage and multimedia presentations.
Water Conservation Technologies
By networking sensor-operated faucets and flushometers in conjunction with supplemental water meters and sensors, facilities managers are able to monitor the entire washroom environment. Total realistic life cycle costs of the washroom are, for the first time, within the grasp of owners and developers.
Fibre-to-the-Telecom-Enclosure (FTTE) or Zone Cabling
The FTTE architecture extends the fibre optic backbone to telecom enclosure closer to workstations throughout a building. The telecom enclosure can then distribute a flexible topology of mixed media and power to the devices using copper category cable, fibre optics, coaxial cable and A/V cable. As a result, buildings can benefit from more useable real estate due to the removal or consolidation of the telecommunications room on each floor. Also, there is a 20-30% cost reduction on cabling due to consolidation and removal of proprietary networks, improved network performance, single contractor/integrator vs. several specialists for disparate systems, and a substantial reduction in cost and disruption to staff when making changes with work areas
Integrated Audiovisual Systems
A modern intelligent conference room with green audiovisual (AV) features may include a networked projector and/or LCD displays, intelligent lighting and window shade systems, a digital audio system, and a high-definition videoconferencing system. Based on requested capabilities in the meeting, the AV control system would take over the task of turning on the AV components, setting them to the proper operational mode and adjusting the room temperature to a comfortable level prior to the meeting start time. Ambient light sensors installed in the room would measure the amount of incoming natural light, adjust window shades as appropriate for the function, and supplement natural light with the interior lighting system to achieve the proper environment for a presentation or videoconference.
The complete text of Bright Green Buildings, Convergence of Green and Intelligent Buildings, prepared by Frost & Sullivan, can be found at www.caba.org/brightgreen.
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