Making the Conversion to Smart Buildings More Accessible

Building Management Systems (BMS) are a well-known tool for reducing the time, money, and energy spent on maintaining a comfortable and efficient building. By automating HVAC operation, a BMS can save building owners up to 50% of their equipment’s energy consumption while simultaneously optimizing air quality and comfort and enabling remote visibility and control. In very cold climates with dramatic temperature swings, these features are particularly beneficial. However, the BMS approach only works if the technology is both installed correctly and actively used — today, most commercial buildings do not have an automation system in place. Of the buildings that do have automation, it is common for operators to bypass features like scheduling and setpoint adjustments that could save energy and oney. This is largely because most solutions on the market are founded on complex infrastructures that make them expensive, laborious, and require extensive product knowledge, both for the installers and the end users. This changes with the IoT-native BMS. Our contribution to the HVAC Cold Climate Conference will present primary and metadata that demonstrate both the energy savings potential of Internet of Things (IoT)-based automation, and current barriers to implementation of traditional controls. Sources include research from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which models the substantial energy savings potential of systems founded on IoT in cold climates; and primary data from distributors that explore why contractors do or do not currently include commercial controls in their services. Finally, the authors will walk through the system architecture of an IoT-based BMS and explain how this approach makes converting buildings to smart operation more accessible to more installing contractors.