Partner Article

Technology - the cornerstone of buildings

Xchanging’s Udaya Shankar looks at the benefits of the ’smart’ or ’connected’ building

Companies are getting wise to the benefits ‘smart’ or ‘connected’ buildings can bring. These technology-enhanced buildings allow for more effective monitoring, controlling and automation of systems, offering benefits that include energy management.

By giving a building ‘intelligence’ the systems it contains that help keep occupants comfortable, safe and better able to go about their daily business, such as heating, lighting, security and so forth can be controlled and managed. This management can result in a range of benefits that include energy efficiency, cost reductions, a lower carbon footprint, better health of occupants and labour reductions from eliminated manual checks on devices such as fire alarms.

Through smart building technology that includes monitoring devices, software applications and network connectivity, and data management and analytics, building managers can control and optimise a building’s environment. They can see whether lights are on or off, what the temperature is and adjust heating controls accordingly. If an employee has forgotten to turn equipment off before they left the office, these can be switched off remotely. They could even be scheduled to switch off automatically at the end of each day.

All of which gives better control over energy consumption.

Energy management

Smart building technology has many applications that include security, entertainment and building access control, but to date, the environmental factor businesses have most wanted to control has been building energy consumption.

Businesses are keen to be green. By reducing their energy consumption they can cut down their carbon emissions, with well-documented benefits to the environment. Commercial over-use of energy also has a big financial impact of course. High energy bills hit balance sheets hard and with businesses continually seeking ways to reduce costs, bringing down energy consumption makes good economic as well as environmental sense.

In a smart building, a business can effectively manage the energy it uses to light and heat the rooms in the workplace that people are occupying and to power the computers and equipment that are in use. Beyond that, they can also reap the benefits of identifying and reducing that energy usage they get no benefit from - wasted energy.

Buildings are energy guzzlers, and not very efficient ones at that. In a smart building, one enabled with an integrated heating, ventilation and air conditioning system equipped with sensors that react and respond to real-time weather changes, energy consumption can be reduced.

As the cost of building commercial real estate escalates – and it’s the second largest expense for most companies – businesses will continue to look toward building ‘green’ offices.

Build or modify?

It is undoubtedly simpler and more cost-effective to integrate smart technology into buildings at the point of construction. It is then that the required cables can be put in seamlessly and unobtrusively. To modify an existing building and turn it into a smart building, is eminently achievable but as it involves installing additional wiring and devices would cost around 20 per cent more than a similar installation in a new build.

It is also easier to add smart technology features during the building’s planning stage. At that point builders can get an accurate read on how the building’s energy efficiency can be improved. Without this starting point it is harder to compare the level of impact the smart system will have. From such a baseline it is relatively simple to fine-tune the smart system for maximum results once it has been installed. Once in, an installed system should be flexible enough to easily adapt to necessary changes.

Connected building

The data generated by connected devices in a smart building is one example of the increasing amount of data we are now collecting from objects. Data that we can analyse and make productive use from.

The potential number of connected devices in this ‘Internet of Things’ is staggering - Gartner recently suggested 26 billion devices would be connected to the internet by 2020. It is hard to even imagine the amount of data that will be generated as a result.

However as more commercial premises become connected buildings, efficient data management will become even more critical for these buildings to realise their potential. It will be important for real estate managers to consider partnering with companies with the expertise and technology to provide end-to-end solutions. Solutions that can deliver insight from the careful analysis of data so that businesses can make well-informed decisions that will help them to succeed.

Udaya Shankar is vice president and head of Internet of Things at Xchanging, the business process, procurement and technology services provider.

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