SMART BUILDINGS
A Perspective towards Sustainable Smart Cities
Like green buildings, sustainability is at the heart of smart cities and it is up to the smart buildings to measure up to this challenge
As an increasing number of people move to urban areas, cities face more challenges, including resource constraints, aging populations and demanding infrastructure. These pose a continuous challenge to healthy and comfortable living. In their efforts to accommodate growing urban populations and the accompanying bottlenecks, governments of the day are using modern technologies to create “Smart Cities” and smart buildings that improve the quality and efficiencies of urban services while reducing costs and ensuring sustainability.
By implementing technology based solutions in urban areas, there is scope to improve everything from traffic flow to emergency response to the operations of the commercial and residential buildings. According to the Harvard Business Review, the United States alone is home to more than 5 million large commercial buildings, including warehouses, offices, and schools. Buildings are responsible for about two-thirds of U.S. electrical energy consumption, and the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the country wastes 30 percent of its overall energy, representing huge financial and environmental losses. In India matters are much worse as energy wastages amount to over 50% due to inefficient regulations and implementation.
By putting intelligent building frameworks in place, connecting all traditionally unconnected equipment, and applying automated analytics and controls, building owners and managers can significantly reduce their buildings’ energy waste and cut costs.
For instance, lighting control systems, thermostats, sensors, and alarms – all connected to the an intelligent software IoT platform – can automatically adjust building settings according to real-time usage patterns, leading to energy savings, improved air quality, and an increase in overall efficiency.
L&T Technology Services has developed a proprietary framework called I-BEMS (Intelligent Building Energy Management Systems) to make buildings intelligent and smart and make it a ready module to get integrated to Smart Cities.
Smarter Buildings: The Foundation for Smart Cities
The rapid introduction of new IoT solutions allows building operators to make their properties smarter without having to undergo costly retrofits or hire expensive consultants. Our intelligent Building framework can be the back bone to build smarter buildings to create the Smart Cities in India, which is being spearheaded by our Hon: Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi.
The major drivers of a smart building are as below:
- Operations: Centralize performance data and use analytical insights to reduce consumption.
- Behaviour: Educate tenants in good habits and best practices, and create a feedback mechanism.
- Physical capital: Where necessary, replace inefficient systems using data intelligence to effectively target capital across large portfolios.
Energy contribution from buildings across the globe have been known to touch figures between 20% and 40% of total energy consumption, visibly exceeding other sectors such as industrial and transportation. This is according to a review on buildings energy consumption information, published by Elsevier.
To offset this magnitude of energy consumption, practices like carbon footprint reduction and asset management are on the rise. With governments changing policies to mandate carbon reduction and encouraging efficient energy consumption through tax incentives and utility rebates, building owners now need a platform that can reliably provide innovative technology for energy-efficient buildings capable of smarter use of resources. This will make the city green and healthier to live in.
Sustaining the environment for future generations will require the creation of smarter buildings with a target of attaining Net-Zero buildings. Asset downtime and lack of redundant systems require astute asset management practices that are best governed through automation. Besides, guidelines to reduce energy consumption vary across specific industries in various countries and are subject to local restrictions. Effective measurement and reporting to claim carbon credits pose quite a challenge for most facility managers.
In the wake of these hurdles, L&T Technology services has created unique solutions customizable for all facility managers to address these challenges. The solutions optimize energy usage and save costs without compromising on comfort of the occupants in the building.
Optimize Energy: Up-to 40% energy savings at 20% lesser cost
I-BEMS enables Net-Zero, energy generation management, predictive and preventive maintenance to help steer-away from consumption to energy generation. Our video analytics access control system effectively operates on the rewards of camera technology as opposed to the customary high-cost sensor driven technology used for detection. Performance monitoring, remote monitoring, diagnostics solutions, IoT and mobility support are certain data analytic services that are part of Intelligent Building Systems offered by L&T Technology Services.
We can build and manage scalable and energy compliant systems for commercial buildings, hotels, residential complexes, pharmaceuticals, hospitals and industrial facilities. The cloud based technology accessible on mobile devices can analyse and predict time-to-failure and monitor facilities too.
As a building facility manager, you will experience customizable user-interface, multi-tenancy billing management, utility connect and energy optimization facilities driven to achieve high user satisfaction at all times.
Integration of Analytics and energy optimization algorithms will help lower energy consumption thus making it energy efficient and green. This will also help the facility managers to maintain the building most efficiently and lowering the cost of maintenance.
With Connected Buildings support, facility owners will be able to keep costs down, simplify facility management by connecting buildings that are geographically spread out, and monitor and control energy consumption.
The illustration below depicts the information flow and usage. This improves decision making as it is based on the right data which enables convergence and integration with smart city solutions.
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In another recent Tech Park Project, a building facility spread over an area of 66243 square feet with approximately 700 occupants, saved 77611 kWh in just seven months. The carbon footprint reduction worked out to be 139.76 kilo-tonnes. These reductions resulted in a 15% savings in the overall cost of managing energy consumption at the facility. We have partnered with Intel® to implement our iBEMS framework in their IoT gateways. Please visit the link http://iotsolutionsalliance.intel.com/solutions-directory/ibems from the Intel® website.
Reliable Implementation keeping an eye on the Future
Here at L&T Technology Services, we has a rich experience in designing and developing smart building products in the areas of Lighting and Control systems, Elevators and Escalators, Fire-alarms Energy monitoring, Heating Ventilation and Air conditioning systems (HVAC) and Safety, and Security and Access control systems. We have developed models like real-time chiller monitoring and cooling tower management have been implemented at buildings for efficient functioning. We have deep expertise in fields including efficiency analysis, Infrared Thermography, Ultra Sonic Leak Detection & Steam Trap Monitoring, and Vibration Analysis, On-line Flow Measurement and Power Quality Analysis. The i-BEMS solution from L&T Technology Services provides real time centralized monitoring that helps keep energy bills healthy. Whether it is technical-know-how or rich expertise in implementing engineering technology, L&T Technology Services sets examples for the future. We provide cloud-enabled integrated asset management, equipment vibrational analysis, integrated mass notification systems, predictive analytics, patented video-analytics and control, integrated generation management and grid-connectivity— all under the same roof. L&T Technology Services holds the unique dispensation of being associated with the best trade names in the market further adding credibility to its many years of experience.