Facility managers are critically aware that heating, cooling, and controlling the environment in office buildings, hospitals, colleges, or high schools accounts for an average of 30% of energy costs each month. This slice of the energy-usage pie is one of the fastest-growing cost categories. It is also one of the most controllable, provided that you have a building management system (BMS) and can accurately detect and interpret the data.
Schneider Electric and FICO can help you accomplish this task, showing you how to maximize BMS value with Building Analytics.
Using AI to Maximize BMS Energy Savings
Building Analytics is a cloud-based addition to your BMS. Designed by engineers at Schneider Electric, this managed service uses artificial intelligence and trend data to diagnose problems and anomalies in the HVAC components that comprise your BMS, including air handling units, central plant pumps, valves, towers, chillers, and more. Building Analytics currently exists in over 550 buildings, enabling Schneider Electric engineers to test and refine it thoroughly.
This enterprise solution is powered in part by artificial intelligence, bolstered by automated fault detection and diagnostics (FDD). Building Analytics not only identifies problems, but it also provides information on actionable repair and maintenance. The platform learns as it goes, so reports are customized to the history of your facility’s BMS, taking into account service, maintenance, and repair records.
Building Analytics also differentiates between the types of issues it finds. Reports indicate whether a recommended action affects energy consumption, is part of system maintenance, or impacts the comfort of building occupants. This information allows you to prioritize repairs. Building Analytics also assigns a severity ranking to the identified problem and assesses the wasted energy.
Building engineers gain a more accurate understanding of the factors causing a problem, saving countless hours of staff time spent trying to track down issues based on incomplete information and hunches.
How Building Analytics Works?
Building Analytics scours the information collected by your BMS, discovering anomalies and irregularities. The program cross-checks against its information database to determine the causes. Before sending this information to the facility manager, however, experts from both Schneider Electric and FICO review the findings and recommendations, verifying them for accuracy.
Building Analytics reflects real-time conditions in your facility, as opposed to “last month’s numbers.” Building Analytics also instantly detects changes in your building’s performance, allowing facility managers to confirm that the indicated repairs resolved the problem.
“This tool provides reliable conclusions and actionable items on repairable HVAC system issues that could lead to downtime and significant energy costs,” says Matt Young, sales director at FICO. “It’s like having a person sitting in front of your BMS system 365 24/7 looking for issues.” The information and recommended actions are specific to your application. Building Analytics is also scalable, so as the footprint of your facility grows, new areas have the same quality coverage and protection. Most importantly, Schneirder Electric chose the Microsoft Azure platform for their cloud computer, so facility managers know their system is secure.”
Real-World Examples of Building Analytics
Building Analytics helps facility engineers identify both minor issues and major ones, often resulting in significant savings.
- At a research laboratory, data from Building Analytics led to $286,000 in annual savings through fault detection in the ventilation system. This is especially critical for research facilities, as their work often requires maintaining a high level of control over their environment, including ambient temperatures and air filtering.
- Building Analytics helps facility managers document energy savings and efficiencies with greater accuracy for utility and government incentives. A multi-tenant office tower is expecting as much as $44,000 in incentives, based on the depth of data obtained from Building Analytics.
- Building Analytics recently diagnosed a leaking chilled water valve in a facility, causing the pre-heating coil and the cooling coil to operate simultaneously. Undiagnosed, this problem would have resulted in annual energy costs exceeding $60,000; instead, the first-month savings paid for the system, representing a total return on investment within the first 30 days.
FICO Can Help
The experts at FICO have been installing HVAC systems and BMS for more than 20 years. Our engineers and installers are certified in the installation and operation of Building Analytics. Click here to visit our website and begin the process, or contact FICO’s Sales Director Matt Young for a demo.
