Johnson Controls (JCI) HVACR Trends - GineersNow Engineering Magazine Key Trends Making Our Cities Greener & Smarter | Page 16

MACHINE-TO-MACHINE COMMUNICATIONS,
also commonly referred to as M2M or the
Internet of Things (IoT), is attracting a lot
of interest and investment from key smart
city stakeholders. While people have been
connected to other people and their various
software applications via the Internet for many
years, people are now able to connect to
everyday devices such as thermostats, door
locks and lights from anywhere at any time.
The devices can also talk to themselves, either
individually or as part of integrated systems,
providing greater functionality and efficiency.
Hospitals use about three times as much
energy as a similarly sized office building
due to 24x7 operations and energy intensive
processes such as operating room conditioning.
A typical surgical suite is unoccupied 70-80
percent of the time during the week and up to
95 percent on weekends. By integrating the
building management system with the surgical
scheduling system and electronic patient
records, excess energy used to condition,
pressurize and ventilate the operating room
can be reduced when unoccupied, saving an
average of US$6,000 per year while delivering
and documenting safer and more comfortable
conditions.
The use of ANALYTICS is also a key trend and
is often associated with the term “big data.”
Indeed, the process of translating raw data into
useful insight and action is a key to delivering
smarter capabilities for buildings, communities
and cities. This analysis can be done by
experienced data scientists or, increasingly in
an automated manner using cloud computing,
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HVACR Leaders • May 2017
machine learning and other advanced statistical
methods. The new Stanford University central
energy facility is an example of the latest
trends in advanced analytics. The central
energy system is managed by an enterprise
optimization system that automatically creates
predictive models of hourly campus heating and
cooling requirements seven days in advance.
The model predictive control system then uses
weather forecasts and predictions of hourly
energy pricing from the utility to optimize
the control of heat recovery chillers and the
dispatch of hot and chilled water storage. The
system is projected to save $US 420M over
the next 35 years and can operate in a fully
automated real-time manner.
The REAL-TIME implementation of advanced
sensing and analytics allows continuous
optimization of building, energy, transportation
and infrastructure systems resulting in greater
operational and resource efficiency. Real-
time traffic management works by measuring
the traffic flow through an intersection and
then automatically adjusting cycle lengths,
splits and offsets between intersections to
maximize throughput, minimize delays and
reduce the number of stops. Other smart city
transportation applications includes London’s
CCTV-based system with more than 1500
cameras that monitor and manage incidents
and events 24-hours a day and Singapore’s
9Km tunnel management system, which
monitors more than 25,000 devices in one 9km
tunnel. Visitors to Singapore might remember
its innovative real-time parking management
system from well over a decade ago.