by Brianna Crandall — July 9, 2014—Facilities managers and others will find guidance on monitoring building performance in an updated BAS publication with a new section on performance monitoring from global building technology society ASHRAE.
ASHRAE Guideline 13-2014, Specifying Building Automation Systems, provides designers of building automation systems (BAS) with background information, recommendations for good practice, project considerations, and detailed discussion of options with respect to the design of a BAS system. The guideline includes online access to an example specification that illustrates the concepts described throughout the document.
The new informative Annex D “Performance Monitoring” was included to assist in the specification of performance monitoring systems.
“The guideline defines three levels of performance monitoring and provides criteria for each level,” Dave Kahn, chair of the Guideline 13 committee, said. “This allows even the basic systems to realize some performance monitoring benefits. It allows monitoring and reporting of HVAC equipment function and operating efficiency, energy consumption and environmental conditions. Careful grouping of X-Y type plots can provide information required to monitor and, if necessary, troubleshoot each different part of the HVAC system. A Level 3 automated fault diagnosis can be used to predict faults. Performance monitoring can direct a building owner to additional energy savings potential at the plant or equipment level.”
ASHRAE Guideline 13-2014, Specifying Building Automation Systems is available from the ASHRAE Bookstore for $95 ($81, ASHRAE members).
ASHRAE says it is already looking ahead to changes to the 2017 version of the guideline. Proposed Addendum A to the standard is open for an advisory public review until July 21, 2014.
“Under the proposed change, the guideline is being rewritten to update the use of the Internet as the primary method for networking BAS devices,” explained Kahn. “The Guideline contains very little specification language on the Internet. Our committee hosted a consultation seminar at the 2013 ASHRAE Conference, and attendees told us Internet connectivity was the top issue we need to address.”
The significant changes under proposed Addendum A are:
- Discussion of BAS design options using Internet protocol (IP) and non-IP devices
- Use of new software tools, such as energy dashboards
- Strategies that BAS designers can use when working with the enterprise information technology (IT) department to deal with securing BAS devices on the enterprise Intranet
- A new Clause 12, BAS Device Network Design, written as a stand-alone section so readers who are responsible for this work can refer to one section for all information on this topic
- A new Clause 13 addressing options for migrating legacy control systems to the enterprise Intranet.
Kahn presented more information on specifying performance monitoring with the guideline as part of a session on monitoring in a July 2 seminar at ASHRAE’s 2014 Annual Conference in Seattle. The session is available online for the next 18 months as part of ASHRAE’s Virtual Conference , which includes access to all seminar, technical paper and conference paper presentations and most special sessions through synced audio and PowerPoint presentations.
