How does the ‘E’ in BEMS apply to Education? We provide some simple strategies to help you regain control.

Until a few years ago the word ‘Energy’ was missing from ‘Building Energy Management Systems’ and the systems were only known as BMS; still controlling energy as they were designed to do but without significant reference to it.

Today the BEMS gathers a lot more information from other devices. Legislation ensures that all new buildings services meters - electricity, gas, water and heat meters are connected to the BEMS and all of this information can be displayed and viewed on the systems head end PC or Supervisor, sometimes referred to as a ‘dashboard’.

We believe that there is still a significant amount of installed BEMS that are not being used to their full potential and the initial investment in the BEMS is not being fully realised.

For example the Trend system’s simple to use diary tool allows rapid set-up of even the most complex occupancy patterns. In addition, the fitting of presence detectors ensures that no area is ever maintained at its occupancy setpoint when it is empty.

The Trend BEMS will often reveal major sources of energy wastage, as well as highlighting deteriorating plant performance, both of which might otherwise go unnoticed. This helps a site to be efficiently managed and maintained - for instance, by removing the need for personnel to physically inspect plant and take meter readings manually. Where a maintenance team is responsible for a large campus or a group of geographically scattered sites, the time saved could be particularly significant.

And remember a meters won’t save you energy, it will just record energy data, it’s what you do with that data that is important.