Comprehensive Building Services Solutions
Your reliable partner in design, installation, and maintenance of mechanical, electrical, and control systems.
Energy Management Systems
The phrase Building Energy Management Systems is sometimes used interchangeably with Building Management Systems (BMS), however, strictly speaking, Building Management Systems can be used to monitor and control a wide range of building systems, including fire, smoke detection and alarms, motion detectors, CCTV, security and access control, lifts and so on. Building Energy Management Systems relate specifically to energy-related systems.
Buildings
Small buildings may have independent controls for energy systems, but for larger or more complex buildings, sites with a number of buildings, or organisations with buildings on a number of sites, the integration of systems operation through a single Building Energy Management System offers greater control and can achieve significant savings. One graphical view (dashboard) bringing all the critical site assets together for the facilities management team. Increasingly, simple BEMS have been developed that are suitable for even the smallest buildings.
Real-time remote monitoring
BEMS provide real-time remote monitoring and integrated control of a wide range of connected systems, allowing modes of operation, energy use, environmental conditions and so on to be monitored and allowing hours of operation, set points and so on to be adjusted to optimise performance and comfort. BEMS can also trigger alarms, in some cases predicting problems and informing maintenance programmes. They allow records to be kept of historical performance, enable benchmarking of performance against other buildings or sites and may help automate report writing.
Savings
Claims for the scale of savings that can be achieved by BEMS range from 10% to 25%. Operated properly, they should allow energy use to be optimised without compromising comfort or performance. However this requires a thorough understanding of how buildings are supposed to perform, and how different systems within them interact. All our engineers are familiar with HVAC equipment and the current site description of operation in order to add further control measures if and when required.
Properly designed
To function correctly they must be properly designed, installed and commissioned and must have a user interface that is easy to operate. They should then be continually assessed and fine-tuned as performance is better understood over a number of seasons and modes of operation, and changes are made to buildings or operations. Maintenance is also necessary to ensure systems continue to operate correctly, for example, replacing sensors and batteries, checking connections, checking the operation of dampers and valves, upgrading software and so on.
Installation
BEMS can be independent installations with separate maintenance contracts, or manufacturer installations which include maintenance. They can be wired or wireless systems. To determine whether a wired or wireless system is the most appropriate, buildings should be audited to test how well signals can be received and how likely disturbances are. Choosing the correct BEMS system then depends on the size and usage of the building, the scale of the project and the budget. As a general rule, larger, more extensive projects tend to be best suited to wireless solutions.