Your Guide to Intelligent Building Controls
Monday, 6th March 2023
With spiking energy prices, rising inflation and the ever-mounting pressure to cut our emissions in the face of climate change, it’s no wonder businesses are looking to building intelligence for smart solutions.
According to a report by Grand View Research, the global smart building market, valued at USD 82.77 billion in 2021, is expected to grow at a compounded growth rate of 25.3% from 2022 to 2030. That’s some serious growth. We can expect intelligent buildings to make a serious impact on our urban landscape in the coming years.
But how do smart buildings work in practice? Here we’ll take you through how intelligent building controls can be used by facility managers and occupants. And we’ll show you some of the benefits you can expect too.
Read on to find out more.
How are intelligent buildings controlled?
Take smart energy meters, smart speakers, and even smart mattresses. Smart technology is rapidly becoming a crucial part of our everyday lives.
Smart tech uses sensors to automatically collect relevant data which is then used to control how particular objects or processes function. For example, rather than having to manually control the heating in every room of your house, a smart thermostat uses data from internet of things (IoT) sensors to automatically adjust the temperature according to your preferences.
Intelligent buildings take this even further.
Rather than just controlling one function (for example, lighting controls), building intelligence is designed so that live data is integrated from a whole host of sensors monitoring lots of different processes (for example, heating, ventilation and occupancy).
Because of this integration, intelligent buildings are controlled using a central hub—usually an online dashboard. Networked IoT sensors feed live data to this hub, which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to integrate, analyse, and act on all of that raw data in combination—24/7, and across your whole site.
The result? Seamless automated action and pertinent insights on the health of your whole building—including things like viral transmission, water safety and building security, all in real-time.
How have building controls evolved?
The way we control our buildings has come a long way.
Only a few decades ago, many buildings relied on manual and mechanical controls for things like heating and lighting. Then, building management systems came along, which used digital devices to automatically keep things like HVAC within set limits at certain times.
Now, with the arrival of building intelligence, we’re seeing building-wide integration of control systems. For example, rather than having separate controls for things like heating and lighting, building intelligence allows building managers to control a whole host of building parameters—all from a central hub.
What’s more, building intelligence is opening the way to further flexibility and customisation when it comes to building controls, with opportunities for remote monitoring and integration with other software, thanks to things like open API.
Intelligent buildings don’t just capture a whole host of data, they use powerful algorithms to combine, process and act on that information—a bit like a powerful analytics machine. This is why we’re seeing building intelligence diagnosing faults in real-time and even predicting issues before they happen, based on patterns in real-time data.
All this new technology sounds promising—and it is. Intelligent buildings promise real benefits for our workplaces, our homes, and the planet. But to reap the rewards, building intelligence (and the way it’s controlled) has to be done the right way.
Smart building technology—done the right way
To really get the most out of smart building technology (and the best ROI), building managers need to think about controlling their buildings in a more holistic way—tackling things like HVAC, lighting, water safety and security in combination, rather than as separate entities.
From the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in their report on lessons learned from high-performance buildings:
“Today’s technologies can substantially change how buildings perform. Properly applied off the-shelf or state-of-the-shelf technologies are available to achieve low-energy buildings. However, these strategies must be applied together and properly integrated in the design, installation, and operation to realize energy savings. There is no single efficiency measure or checklist of measures to achieve low-energy buildings.”
And this doesn’t just apply to energy efficiency. Things like air quality, water safety, and security all benefit from this ‘big-picture’ type of approach. That’s why, here at Infogrid, we’ve designed our building intelligence systems to be used as whole-building solutions, not just one-off measures.
Here’s an example of the range of products we offer:
Healthy buildings: Infogrid’s healthy building solution combines occupancy tracking, air quality and hygiene monitoring so you can better understand how the spaces in your buildings are being used, and take steps to optimise them, for a cleaner, safer workplace.
Efficient buildings: Drive efficiencies with real-time monitoring, automated compliance checks and centralised management. With always-on monitoring, you’ll be alerted to any maintenance issues immediately, and wherever you are, thanks to our online dashboard.
Sustainable buildings: Use Infogrid’s automated, smart AI solution to measure the environmental performance of your buildings, and find actions to dramatically improve your building’s green credentials. Save on energy and target resources more effectively with real-time electricity monitoring, occupancy tracking, and air quality monitoring.
With Infogrid, all of your building’s KPIs, as well as relevant insights, alerts and performance data can be accessed and managed on our intuitive dashboard. We know that as a building manager, you’ll want information on lots of different building performance indicators, which is why you can overlay data on multiple parameters, for truly customised insights.
And this centralised type of intelligent building control comes with some serious benefits.
Let’s take a look.
How can intelligent building controls benefit your business?
Sure, no one’s denying it—investing in building intelligence involves upfront costs. But the long-term gains are substantial. Here are just some of the ways Infogrid’s intelligent building systems have helped businesses around the world:
Substantial savings. Better targeted resources, optimised efficiency and preventative maintenance—all benefits that come with building intelligence and that can save your business serious amounts of money in the long run.
We helped a supermarket save $1.6m a year on energy costs on their HVAC system alone, a bank save $1m a year on their water bill and a restaurant chain save $1.72m in food costs during the pandemic.
Green credentials to be proud of. Building operations account for 30% of the UK’s carbon emissions so to meet the conditions of the Paris Agreement, we need to substantially improve building sustainability.
Our intelligent building solutions helped a retail company save 800 tons of CO2 per year and 600 litres of water saved per tap.
Increased employee wellbeing. Building intelligence means building health. Working conditions are optimised with measures like automated climate control, occupancy monitoring and predictive maintenance.
We helped an analytics company reduce their virus risk by 80% with intelligent air quality monitoring.
And the benefits of intelligent building control systems go further. Driving efficiencies and lowering your building’s carbon footprint is an essential part of any successful business strategy.
For example, Infogrid research found that 41% of UK employees say they’d be more likely to apply to work at a company that proposed or adopted a net-zero strategy and In 2020, 85% of investors considered ESG credentials.
Take control with building intelligence from Infogrid. Get in touch with us to get started today.