Increasing numbers of facility managers and building owners realize the importance of incorporating a building management system into their new or existing buildings. Reduced energy bills, compliance with federal, state, and local conservation mandates, and good citizenship are all rewards for those who maintain an up-to-date BMS.
However, selecting a building management system also raises many questions. What features and technology should you look for in a BMS for your building? What developments are driving this important industry? Given the rapid advances in technology today, this is a pertinent question.
Let’s take a look.
Current BMS Technologies Will Only Get Better
Before looking at future technologies that will improve BMS, it’s essential to be aware of those that have propelled BMS to its current levels of efficiency, energy conservation, and cost savings. These disciplines aren’t going anywhere. They include:
Open Platforms
BMS often controls several systems within a building or entity, including HVAC, electrical distribution, water management, lighting, climate control, and more. The list is forever expanding. BMS developers acknowledge that no system or manufacturer can address every aspect of building management. Therefore, BMS designers construct open systems to allow the addition of controls and upgrades from other products and developers, including those that have yet to be developed.
Open platform development—designing systems that will interact with a number of add-on technologies and upgrades—is vital to flexible BMS that can grow with your needs.
Internet of Things (IoT)
Count the number of connected devices in your home. Don’t limit this list to computers, tablets, and phones. Include smart watches, lights, appliances controlled by Alexa or similar technology, and devices you haven’t considered. Don’t be surprised if the number is close to twenty or even higher. Imagine the number of connected devices in an office building, hospital, or university.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an interconnected system of these devices that transfers and exchanges data over a wireless network without human intervention. This same technology drives many of the BMS-related devices and systems in your building.
Cloud Computing
Each of those devices on your IoT produces data. The key to optimizing your BMS and using it to its fullest potential is to have as much data as possible, both on past performance and current capabilities. Storing all this data on sight is impractical, especially given the cost of the footprint of a data center in today’s real estate market, to say nothing of the need for continuous upgrading, programming, and maintenance. Cloud computing allows facility managers to store data in an off-site location. Many services, including Google Cloud, AWS, and others, also offer a menu of programs and capabilities that you might find helpful in addressing your data.
The New Technologies
New technologies are also boosting BMS’s efficiency. Many seem contradictory to current technologies, while others depend on those we’ve already discussed to operate. Properly designed, they all work together to make BMS and other disciplines function even at peak efficiency.
1. Edge Computing
Cloud services allow facility managers to store large amounts of data for research and analysis. However, quick decisions, especially those controlled by AI, require immediate access to data. Edge computing, a depot for recent data that resides on the edge of the BMS hardware, provides this access for quick analysis and decisions.
Many BMS decisions don’t require historical data to determine current functions. Edge computing allows BMS to reference data at or near the place it is being generated, reducing unwanted traffic over the network. Facility managers can program temperature changes, lighting adjustments, and other daily functions based on immediate information instead of having the data analysis process dive back into mounds of data on the cloud.
Edge computing allows systems to operate faster and reduces the expense of cloud storage and real-time data access.
2. Smart Building as a Service (SBaaS)
As consumers, most of us subscribe to at least one online software system. You might use the free version or pay for additional bells and whistles. A good example is the service you use to play with and learn about AI. Look for this same “as-a-service” trend to appear increasingly in the BMS arena. Your SBaaS vendor handles hardware selection and other system selection, upgrading, maintenance, integrations, replacing aging systems and components, and many other tasks related to BMS. End users enjoy up-to-date software with the latest features and avoid significant upfront expenses.
If your application is simple, SBaaS might be the answer. However, custom buildings with many demands might not be ideal candidates for this off-the-shelf solution.
3. Digital Twins
Many BMS professionals advise building a digital twin of your system, a replica of your system that exists in electronic form on a computer. The digital twin reflects the same attributes and capacities as the actual building, allowing you to understand the impact of changes before implementing them. As an owner, you may be faced with determining the proper lease amount for a client who wants to maintain an on-site data center. A digital twin allows you to see the implications without installing the actual data center.
Digital twins also allow you to predict maintenance needs for your BMS more efficiently and perform other types of evaluations.
4. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is one of the more significant technologies for the future of BMS. It has potential for just about everything it touches.
One of the variables affecting BMS in your building is the weather. Weather predictions are infamously inaccurate in specific regions and during specific times of the year. A seven-day weather forecast can be off by as much as 20%, and ten-day forecasts are off by as much as 50%. If your BMS links to a regularly updated weather forecasting service, it can draw information for immediate decisions. Using dated information is costly in terms of energy and often creates uncomfortable environments for building occupants. Lighting can be adjusted depending on whether it is a sunny or cloudy day.
AI can also monitor energy sources. At peak times during the day, your rooftop solar system can help avoid peak grid charges.
The potential for artificial intelligence enhancing BMS is limitless. The best part is that all of this, and much more, happens without human interaction.
5. Maintenance
Predictive maintenance, also known as Maintenance 4.0, uses other technologies, including AI and digital twins, to inform facility managers when to replace defective parts, update software, and perform other maintenance duties. Predictive maintenance can even evaluate soon-to-be-replaced components and determine their actual condition. This allows facility managers to extend service life, save money, and more efficiently schedule maintenance. Estimates are that predictive maintenance can save as much as ten percent on downtime costs while ensuring continuity of service.
