COVID-19 and airside management imperatives for building operators
In 2020, it has become critical to manage indoor air quality for all occupants in the building environment. Properly maintained and operated heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment are critical in line with the best practices and guidelines1 from industry organizations like the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and the Federation of European Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning Associations (REHVA).
The BluEdge™ Command Centers of EcoEnergy Insights provides remote HVAC Airside Management through centralized operations which is made up of an experienced pool of engineers, data scientists and analysts who proactively manage airside equipment. The 24*7 BluEdge™ Command Centers has a decade long expertise of managing over 400 million sq. ft. of floor space covering over 150,000 pieces of equipment across 17,000+ buildings spread across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Overview
Remote Airside Management covers the remote management of building HVAC equipment such as roof top units, air handlers, variable refrigerant flow (VRF) units, DX/cassette units, variable air volume (VAV) units, fan coil units (FCU), and ventilation and exhaust fans that are commissioned in major building management/automation systems such as the WebCTRL®** system, iVu®** system, Tridium, Niagara, Novar and Trane.
Remote Airside Management includes planned assessments by experts on:
- Indoor air quality parameters based on policies and industry standards
- Operational health of filter and filtering elements
- Operational health of airside equipment and sub–equipment
- Sensor health
- Control system operational health
In addition, there is:
- Need-based scheduling of exhaust and ventilation equipment to meet ventilation requirements like air purges, ventilation rates, demand-based ventilation
- Remote help desk assistance to guide technicians for effective troubleshooting on site
To enable the above, the BluEdge™ Command Centers follows a structured operational rhythm that includes planned assessments by experts, remote updates, remote diagnostics and remote resolutions based on pre-agreed standard operating procedures. Where a remote resolution is not feasible, a detailed work order with a description of the issue, the root cause and the recommended field action is generated for the local engineer to act upon. Such work orders are tracked till they are completed with post-fix quality assessment. Additionally, periodic reports are generated for the building operators, which provide a comprehensive view on airside key performance indicators like indoor air quality, ventilation and filtration, number of remote and local resolutions and trend and critical airside deviations.
The operational overview of the BluEdge™ Command Centers is depicted below:
Deployment
The Remote Airside Management is launched in 3 quick steps:
Benefits
- Dynamic management of the indoor air quality and ventilation in line with industry best practices
- Remote actions and resolutions to overcome the absence or shortage of staff on premises to make changes, as well as the availability of field technicians to fix deviations
- Optimization in buildings’ ongoing maintenance and operational costs in line with its operations
Elevate building operations with a connected building management service - powered by the CORTIX™ platform
Building operators have the option to upgrade to a connected service that deploys the CORTIX™ platform – an AI and IoT platform. The platform understands the unique context in which buildings and equipment operate considering an exhaustive set of factors such as IoT data from equipment, business details like operating hours, weather patterns, service management data, and more. It collects data from multiple sources, analyzes it, acts on defined deviations autonomously and offers predictive actionable insights. The BluEdge™ Command Centers leverages these insights to proactively make remote interventions or plan maintenance activities to avoid equipment failures or prolonged downtimes. The focus of the service is to digitally transform building and equipment operations to a proactive model. Building operators are empowered to achieve objectives such as improving occupant comfort, improving energy efficiency, reducing maintenance costs and enhancing equipment life.
Write to us at [email protected] for more on remote airside management.
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