Buildings account for a third of global energy consumption and a quarter of CO2 emissions. Commercial buildings are a significant contributor to this statistic and HVAC contributes a significant portion of the energy.
Thus, a clear path to achieve Energy Efficiency is to ensure that the HVAC system that includes Chillers, AHU’s, Pumps, VAV’s, VRF etc. operate at peak efficiencies by eliminating energy wastage.
Energy Wastage
What are these “energy wastages”, how can we identify them, and what are the corrective measures?
The infographic below defines the key Energy Wastage areas in Commercial Buildings.
Most wastages are directly related to the HVAC & Electrical equipment – specifically its monitoring, control & automation, or the lack thereof.
Identifying Wastages – the Power of Data
As a famous Peter Drucker goes, If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
Installing a BMS is not enough anymore!
Most modern Commercial Buildings are equipped with a Building Management Systems (BMS) or even an Integrated Building Management System (BMS). But their role is limited to merely switching on & switching off of HVAC assets to meet demand. Also, in buildings that are 2-3 years old (or older), most BMS policies are bypassed by manual intervention with no record or trace of these changes.
These lead to HVAC assets operating at sub-par efficiencies and becoming Energy Guzzlers.
This is when inefficiencies have already crept into your building, burdening you with wasteful Energy $$$ without the Building Manager ever realizing it.
Data, expertise & analytics can play a key role in understanding the current state of operations, issues, and thereby uncovering areas of improvement. Technologies such as AI, ML & IoT play a key role in helping Building Managers continuously optimize the energy performance of their buildings. There are typically four stages of Active Energy Management.
Taking Control – Managing HVAC Energy Actively
Most Energy Monitoring Systems today offer just Energy reporting.
What Building Managers today need is an Active HVAC Energy Management Platform that can address energy wastage in real-time, by leveraging state-of-the-art technologies including best practices, smart rules, IoT & ML/AI algorithms.
Building Managers can actively contribute to the organizations savings goals by harvesting the true potential of data and automated actions.
db Energy is a cloud-based Energy Savings platform that identifies, prioritizes, and acts on energy-reduction opportunities in an automated manner. Its AI-enabled Fault Detection & Diagnostics algorithms predict energy usage, calibrate HVAC flows basis derived or occupancy and can also reduce maintenance downtimes and increase asset life-cycles.
What are the benefits?
Energy.AI transitions operational data to meaningful insights with pre-configured thresholds and analytics. The automated interventions can result in 20% to 40% savings in HVAC Energy Bills, which translates to annual savings of around Rs. 25 per sq. ft.
For a typical office floor plate of 50,000 sq. ft., this is an annualized saving of up-to ₹ 12. 5 Lakhs.
What can you do?
Get in touch with our experts today to know how Digital Blanket Energy.AI can actively help you Save Energy, reduce your Carbon Footprint, and report on ESG compliance. You have nothing to lose but your energy bills.
