In office buildings, providing an optimum work environment is besides the efficient use of resources of utmost importance. Only if the employee feels comfortable, which means the lighting conditions, room climate and the quality of the air is good, excellent work can be performed over a longer period. Not to loose sight of an optimum allocation of the available resources, there are plenty of possibilities:
Single room control
Several rooms of the building can be controlled separately. For example the heating of a room is in comfort mode only if the room is occupied. Also the rejected heat of technical devices or a higher amount of people in the room have to be considered.
Constant light control
The illumination intensity is constant through redemption or adding of artificial light depending on the share of natural light. Unnecessary artificial light and the arising costs are avoided. Too much artificial light might also effect the well-being of employees and lead to concentration disability, headache and exhaustion. Also an intelligent shading of the building considering the sun path, current weather situation and the shadow of the buildings nearby can have a positive effect.
Control as needed
Time circuit diagrams can avoid unnecessary waste of energy. In most cases it is sufficient to run in economy mode during the holiday or at night. Also conference rooms can be controlled according to the occupation of the room.
Presents detector for floors, toilets and before entry/exit
When a person steps into the determined area, the light turns on. Automatically turning off after a certain period can help to save resources. This is reasonable in rooms which are used at certain times or for short periods.
Including window contacts into the heating control
If a window is open, the heating power decreases. This can be supported by using a hysteresis. It avoids a permanent switching on and off of the heating, by not turning on the heating until a falling below a minimum value. The cycle of operation gets longer and can be used more reasonable.
Energy reporting
Even if the different measures for reduction of the energy consumptions are already realized, the analysis of the energy consumption can help to identify potentials for saving energy. By defining hierarchically organized cost center structure, the main energy consumers within the company might be detected. The evaluation of the consumption values with charts or tables over certain periods shows a longterm development.
Besides the complex requirements mentioned above, existing systems have to be integrated in the building automation system sometimes. Thereby, building automation systems with open interfaces to the common systems might help. For example information from web cams or access control systems can be integrated as well.
