The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has just granted the LEED NC (New Construction) Silver Certification to Delta Electronics’ Beijing Office. Delta’s Beijing office has demonstrated an impressive 20% cut in overall energy costs as compared to the annual baseline reference of the 2007 ASHREA standard 90.1. Relative to other large public buildings within the same region, Delta’s Beijing Office saves up to 22% in total energy consumed and 43% in total water consumed against the LEED design standard baseline.
Delta’s Beijing Office, besides functioning as a sales and administration center, also serves as a significant R&D center cultivating technological talent in North China. A 5-story building with a 2-level basement sprawling over a total area of 19,000 square meters, Delta’s Beijing Office has successfully implemented many energy-saving architectural techniques and green designs.
The office building utilizes Delta’s own Building Management and Control System (BMCS), which supports all major communication protocols such as BACnet/IP, BACnet MS/TP, LonMark/IP, LonMark TP/FT-10, Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU, OPC XML-DA, M-Bus, KNX, EnOcean and others, simultaneously. The BMCS also facilitates data exchange to transform existing systems in the building to an integral whole run by automated control, which operates on a single platform for rapid integration. This reduces overall investment costs while nicely balancing energy efficiency with occupant comfort. A variety of diverse systems that can be integrated on this single BMCS platform include: lighting, air-conditioning, chiller, heating, conferencing system and environment control system.
Lighting control offers a conference capability on the first and second floor. Each actuates its own appropriate lighting mode based on usage scenarios, such as all lights on for general conference mode, or front lights off for slide presentation mode. Each and every lighting unit’s status can be monitored and controlled on the BMCS web interface, from a single lamp to a large group of lamps, plus finer control for anything in-between individual controls and group controls. The lighting of the third and fourth floors of the office building operate according to working hours interleaved with lunch breaks and holidays, which can also be complemented with other improvised schedule controls. If overtime is necessary, lighting can also be manually turned on and off via local touch panels.
The office spaces in the third and fourth floors are studded with sensors that capture temperature and humidity data, and are capable of real-time monitoring and analysis of the office environment. The realtime status of each area is also displayed on a big signage screen. A 24-hour trending history of the office environment data is ready, anytime, at a glance. Delta’s Building Management and Control System will automatically make the right decision for the appropriate control, whether it is to activate, modulate or deactivate the air-conditioning, AHU, chiller, or heating system.
Regarding air-conditioning in the office spaces, the temperature, humidity and CO2 concentration data captured on realtime sensors help determine the appropriate fan speed and temperature setpoints to modulate ambient comfort with automated start/stop. Holidays and exception days are discretely scheduled to achieve maximum energy savings. The exhibition halls and conference halls on the first and second floors are each provided with a single FCU for air-conditioning, which is capable of a precise temperature control over each zone, with automated ventilation start/stop for intelligent energy savings.
The local hot water supply, provided by the municipal hot water pipe network, is shunted into four pipelines, each of which is tapped with a flow meter and a thermometer respectively. This measures consumption quantity before conversion to appropriate terms for energy analysis and management. Each pipeline has a proportional valve that is controlled according to schedule, such as: office hot water supply is to be shut down for weekends and holidays, while the dormitory is still fully provided. During weekdays, heating begins at 5:00am every morning to warm up the office spaces, and stops at 10:00pm.
Delta’s Beijing Office has easily achieved the seamless integration of its building subsystems, simply by adopting its own effective and efficient solution: the BMCS. By simply tapping on a touch screen, the BMCS offers the building operator not only intelligent automated control, but also user flexibility that responds to real field scenarios for more purposeful control, and takes the full potential of the intelligent BMCS into even smarter energy-saving.