Smart Buildings: Sensor costs low enough for reasonable payback
I recently attended a presentation on Cybersecurity and Smart Buildings, and I was blown away by the many potential benefits (and one major concern) in this emerging industry.
The experts giving the presentation included executive David Colby from Schneider Electric SE (a $29B Fortune 500 multi-national manufacturer of HVAC and IoT hardware); a cybersecurity expert, Vaughn Eisler from Equinix, Inc. (the nation’s largest data-center company); and Robert Granadino , Chief Operating Officer with InteliGlas Corporation, (a secure smart building artificial-intelligence (AI) platform company for mid-market office buildings) connecting their software to internet-of-things (IoT) sensors and building system hardware.
Granadino said, this technology was really not possible 3-5 years ago, but costs have come down to the point where, for a mid-1970s, suburban, 85,000 ft.2 office building setup fees are between $65,000-$125,000 to and $3,000-$5,000 per month thereafter, with an ROI payback of just six to eight months on projected annual energy cost savings of 22%-26% on average.
InteliGlas integrates building systems and sensors on HVAC system packages, such as Schneider Electric, as well as, integrating lighting system, elevators, irrigation, building security and more.
The InteliGlas platform is in the cloud and features AI-machine learning to absorb the complete building environment, as it goes. InteliGlas monitors real-time, 24/7 and taking autonomous-action, working with data from third-party sites, such as US Department of Commerce National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service (NWS) to obtain forecasts informing inteliGlas’ AI when it will be hot, overcast, or rainy before it occurs automatically adjusting irrigation and HVAC systems accordingly.
When equipment has an irregular sound or vibration, the property manager/owner and subcontractor can check it out before the system breaks-down completely, such as an HVAC system failing in the middle of a super-hot summer and limit system downtime.
The cybersecurity element was especially important as there have been recent cases of office buildings being held-up under a ransomware attack, said Eisler. Adequate property cybersecurity measures can prevent this. InteliGlas integrates 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring as part of its base installation, securing a building’s network and its building systems.
Mass sensorization is leveraged to track occupancy within a building, tracking employees’ location within the premises and automatically adjusting a building’s HVAC and lighting systems through AI-driven autonomous-action.
Building expense reduction, increased equipment efficiencies, reduced downtime, happier employees, and a system better for the environment is here today at a fairly reasonable payback period.
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