Boston-Based Higher Education and Research School

Educational and research facility more than doubles its investment in energy management, extends equipment life with model-based analytics.

A Boston-based higher education and research school* has been on task to maximize the efficiency of its aging Building Automation System (BAS). Over the past decade, the campus has integrated new and existing BAS equipment, some of which are nearing end-of-life status but consistently operational. Equipment commissioning, campus-wide analytics, monitoring, and performance optimization are necessary to improve equipment capacity, identify anomalies and failures impacting system efficiency, and reduce energy consumption and demand.

*Due to confidentiality agreements, the name of the school is withheld.

Cimetrics’ Solution

Since 2008, Cimetrics has partnered with the school and the BAS manufacturer to monitor five university buildings, four of which comprise the main campus, for a total of 559,787 square feet. Analytika Pro Building Optimization Services by Cimetrics has been monitoring sensor and actuator data for 10,590 points with 700,000 data samples collected daily. Data modeling and simulations using Analytika’s 2000+ software algorithms enable the school to project annual energy savings and the ROI of capital equipment expenditures.

Systems monitored include 32 Air Handling Units, 29 exhaust fans, 22 boilers and heat exchangers, 35 hot water pumps, 11 chilled water pumps, 800 terminal units, and 23 air conditioning units.

Over the years, Analytika Pro identified 120 opportunities for efficiency improvement resulting in significant annual energy cost savings and reduced consumption and demand of electricity, steam, and chilled water. Savings opportunities were found campus-wide and could largely be attributed to optimizing equipment scheduling and setpoints, or equipment malfunctions.