Turn out the lights: getting the most out of your Building Management and Energy Management solution
Building Management and Energy Management Solutions have changed the landscape for facilities managers. It wasn’t so long ago that theirs was primarily a physical task. If you wanted to reduce costs, save energy, or even shut things down for the night, a visual inspection followed by a flick of various switches (to the “off” position) was standard procedure.
But that’s all changed, and further advances are coming fast. Building and Energy Management Solutions have seen to that. As the ever-increasing availability of real-time operational data is harnessed and used to make applications even smarter, the potential for facilities managers to realize an ever-widening array of benefits is within reach.
Building Management Systems
Before we look at some of those benefits, let’s quickly remind ourselves of what Building Management Systems (BMS) and Energy Management Systems (EMS) are. The former (sometimes also called Building Automation Systems) integrates a range of building and control systems into a single platform that’s broadly responsible for overseeing and managing how a building operates. These systems give the facilities manager instant and centralized control over various core functions like:
- HVAC
- Security
- Lighting
- Energy Management
This makes it easier to optimize how the building performs, improving the comfort of occupants and reducing unnecessary operational costs in the process.
Energy Management Systems
Energy management systems (EMS) operate on the same principle as Building Management Systems (i.e., the centralized control of a specific function or set of functions). Still, these applications focus on monitoring, controlling, and optimizing energy consumption rather than other aspects of the facility.
Similarly, energy management systems are made up of hardware, software, and rules that, working in tandem gather, normalize, analyze, and report energy data. Their output can be tailored to meet the specific needs and goals of the user, which in turn will be influenced by factors including industry type, building size, and energy consumption patterns.
It doesn’t take an enormous leap of faith to see that EMS and BMS are significant advances in how buildings are managed. Now we’ve briefly defined the two let’s look at five ways to get the most value out of them.
5 ways to leverage your EMS/BMS
1-Better understanding of your energy consumption patterns. You must first understand the situation to improve or fix anything in life (or business). Your Energy Management System, which aggregates and monitors data related to energy usage, is your window to being able to do that. The EMS keeps track of utilities like electricity, gas, and water via a range of metering devices and network-connected sensors deployed across a facility. Real-time usage data is fed back into the application for analysis, which informs you about consumption patterns, areas of high usage, abnormalities in consumption, and more. From this information, your insights can become actionable, and recommendations to improve usage emerge. These can range from the simple “turn off the lights” to far more complex measures like fine-tuning your HVAC system’s performance.
2-Speaking of HVAC, its efficient operation is arguably the most important function of the Building Management System. Similar data-gathering functionalities to those noted above allow the BMS to record real-time information about a facilities temperature, humidity, airflow, and energy usage. This lets the facilities manager achieve more precise control and adjustment of physical HVAC assets like chillers, boilers, air handlers, and dampers. The winners here are universal: optimal comfort conditions for occupants of the facility and energy savings by avoiding unnecessary equipment operation and thus reduced energy wastage for the building operator.
3-Did we already say, “turn out the lights”? Well, yes and lighting control is another area for improved performance driven by the BMS. With integrated lighting controls, it’s easy for the facilities manager to adjust lighting levels, schedules, and zones so that they match occupancy patterns, daylight availability, and strategic energy-saving plans. Again, user comfort is enhanced while, at the same time, significant energy savings can be achieved by eliminating unnecessary usage and maximizing the use of daylight.
4-Make life easier! BMS and EMS make the job of facilities management easier, allowing a significant focus on outcomes rather than just processes. The centralized control and monitoring provided by these applications mean that facility managers can easily manage and be aware of all aspects of building operations via a single interface, saving both time and effort in aggregating key performance data. This not only makes them more efficient and productive, but reduces the need for unnecessary manual interventions, thereby saving time and effort where it’s not required.
5-Key operational information at your fingertips. From a management perspective, the Data Analytics and Reporting functions of BMS/EMS can provide critical advantages at both an operational (as we’ve seen to some degree) and corporate level. The data collected and analyzed via these applications is the basis for generating reports that identify patterns, trends, inefficiencies, behaviors, and more, all of which can lead to making more informed decisions about how to optimize building operations immediately and in the longer term.
Of course, there are many other ways to accrue benefits from your BMS/EMS besides those noted above. They include:
- Enhanced Security and Safety
- Predictive Maintenance
- Regulatory Compliance
- Remote Access and Control
We’ll discuss these and others in more detail in a future blog.
Freedom to profit
One example of the BMS/EMS solution described in this blog is NexRev Freedom. Freedom enables the sort of intelligent, data-backed insights and actions that help users realize many of the benefits we’ve outlined above. Specific examples of how it enables users to get the most out of building and energy management include:
- Freedom’s user-configurable site filters mean individual users within a company can quickly filter down to see facility performance related to sites they are directly responsible for. These configurable user-based filters can also be saved. Thus, a big picture available (all areas critical for multi-site companies), but also a granulated smaller picture to aid building management on both micro- and macro-levels.
- Freedom’s maps overlay enables easy visualization of site locations, and colored pins on the overlay provide quickly identify problem Maps can be filtered by pin color to remove clutter and focus on sites that require the facility manager’s attention. An expansive library of standard reports also gives the user easy access to important information.
- We mentioned reports earlier, and Freedom’s report generator tool allows the user to create and save their own custom reports that can then be run again in the future. Freedom reports can also be configured to be automatically email out on a regular basis. A comprehensive library of canned reports is also available, giving instant access to key information and indicators.
- Freedom’s Bulk Change tools permit easy management of large-scale changes to building optimization strategies that may be required throughout the year, for example, when store schedules change for holiday hours – or when new ASHRAE weather warnings mandate rapid changes for a region impacted by adverse conditions.
About NexRev
NexRev’s Freedom solution enables intelligent, data-backed insights and actions that help users realize many of the benefits described in this blog.
At NexRev, we’ve been unlocking the power of facility and energy management data with over a million connected devices across North America. Our team of experts is focused on helping you deliver more with your budgets, infrastructure, and assets to create sustainable savings in operations and energy, reducing your risk and increasing operational confidence. To begin a discussion on how we can help you to reduce energy waste, please email us at