FEATURE ENERGY MANAGEMENT
Paul Walsh, General Manager – EMEA at CIM, looks into the role a
smart building analytics strategy can play in managing high energy
using industrial sites
The everyday burden of keeping large life
sciences and micro-electronics manufacturer
sites as e icient as possible o en falls to facilities
management teams. But the impact of recent
ongoing global crises is hard to ignore, and
industry sources are warning that electricity
prices may see costs up to 60 per cent more than
on the continent.
Many UK tier 1 large manufacturing companies
have announced their intention to achieve carbon
neutrality, but delivering on this commitment will
prove uniquely challenging for leadership and
facility management teams in energy-intensive,
hi-tech factories. This is especially pressing with
decarbonisation targets and the UK’s notoriously
high industrial electricity £/kWh in mind, which is
set to be impacted further by ongoing geopolitical
events.
Regulations around this pressing issue
have become increasingly stringent, with the
Government’s 2019 pledge of net-zero carbon
emissions by 2050 tightened further as a roadmap is
built to a greener future. Governmental legislation
adopted from the Climate Change Committee’s Sixth
Carbon Budget advisory report, which proposed
emissions reductions of 75 per cent by 2035, is a
good example of this increasingly ambitious, but no
less painful, approach to decarbonising operations.
INSUFFICIENT C-SUITE SUPPORT
Facilities managers at the sharp end of these issues
50 MAY 2022
are not receiving the support required to reduce
consumption in areas such as HVAC systems, which
can account for circa 40 per cent of a site’s overall
energy consumption. Indeed, according to recent
research commissioned by building analytics
specialists CIM and published in their new report,
The Energy Blind Spots, only 35 per cent of facilities
managers at Tier 1 manufacturers felt that energy
e iciency was a high priority to the C-Suite.
Additionally, 54 per cent of FMs felt that HVAC costs
are being recognised by senior management, but to
really achieve net-zero commitments and improved
energy performance while remaining competitive,
site leadership teams need to prioritise e iciency
programs on HVAC plant and critical equipment.
The importance of addressing HVAC e iciency
becomes even greater still when considered
alongside additional findings from CIM’s research,
where 87 per cent of respondents stated that CAPEX
constraints were a major barrier to improving energy
performance. This highlights the need to realise
OPEX savings through means such as actionable,
data-informed building insights.
PERPETUAL FIREFIGHTING
With insu icient support from senior leadership
teams, FMs may end up in a cycle of perpetual
firefighting, constantly addressing issues arising from
building management system (BMS) alarms. Moving
these personnel from a reactive to a proactive
footing will be key to ensuring energy-intensive
manufacturers are best placed to handle soaring
bills and increasingly demanding sustainability
commitments.
This reality is further underlined in CIM’s research,
which found that less than one-third of facilities
managers surveyed (29 per cent) were continually
monitoring carbon emissions. These findings were
in spite of the fact that 63 per cent of respondents’
sites had been certified to the ISO 50001 standard for
energy management. Considering that 62 per cent
of respondents also believed they were deficient in
their day-to-day collection of key BMS data, a picture
is further painted of under-pressure and misdirected
facilities teams and enhanced requirements for
support with building and data monitoring.
ALARM FATIGUE
The volume of data that BMS and critical equipment
can produce is understandably overwhelming,
which can lead to the phenomenon of ‘BMS alarm
fatigue,’ in which FMs inundated by constant alarms
may become less likely to address these alerts. As a
result, a further barrier is erected against mitigating
skyrocketing energy costs and decarbonising
operations. This is seen in CIM’s findings, where
27 per cent of respondents said all BMS alarms go
unactioned as they receive too many notifications.
EFFECTIVE UNDERPINNING
Fortunately, technological innovation is already
occurring to address this concern, with building
analytics platforms being developed that ingest
live building data. By applying machine learning
and automated Fault Detection diagnostics these
platforms can provide predictive and proactive
insights and actions. Alongside verifying that
improvements do not degrade over time, the most
innovative of these systems are also monitored by
HVAC mechatronic and electrical engineers, ensuring
workloads are prioritised towards actions that will
achieve the strongest outcome and savings.
With these platforms and steps taken, facilities
managers can go beyond the previous reactive, or
‘fix-and-forget’ approach that can leave them in
a constant loop of running repairs, and unable to
best action larger strategic steps to improve overall
e iciency and sustainability. Instead, they can now
be in a better place to address outside concerns such
as advancing decarbonisation targets and rising
energy costs. Tackling these OPEX concerns could
therefore help turn mountains back into molehills
as far as CAPEX constraints on energy-e icient
equipment are concerned.
By taking the comparatively minor step of
deploying a smart building data strategy, key
stakeholders could spark the beginning of a virtuous
circle, in which interdependent areas – sustainability,
competitiveness, and energy e iciency – inspire
ongoing improvement. Consequently, an underpressure
sector and its personnel can be more
e ectively braced against further disruption in the
future.
For more information on CIM’s new report, The
Energy Blind Spots, visit https://cim.io/documents/
energy-blind-spots/
HIGH ENERGY
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