BUILDING CONTROLS & TECHNOLOGY New technology for a new era
BCIA President Graeme Rees discusses some of the major issues facing the building controls sector, including rising energy prices, the skills shortage and the ultimate goal, Net Zero
B
y the time people are reading this they will already have a good idea of just how hard the UK’s rising energy bills will be hitting them this winter. The topic of the energy crisis
was one of the key threads of the Conservative leadership contest after Boris Johnson announced his resignation as Prime Minister back in July. Of course within days of being voted in as the new Conservative party leader and replacing Mr Johnson as Prime Minister, Liz Truss had the task of officially announcing King Charles III as our new monarch following the sad passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
For a few days the whole of the UK – and many parts of the world seemed to stop functioning properly as we dealt with the end of her era-defining reign. Back in normality households and businesses continue to face serious concerns over how they are going to cope with soaring energy prices. One of the core aims of the building controls industry is to enable people to manage their buildings better. With the growing demand for energy- efficient systems, the rise in adoption of Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled Building Management systems (BMS), and growing industry standards and regulations, the global smart building market size is expected to reach USD 570.02 billion by 2030 and expand at a CAGR of 25.3% from 2022 to 2030.
Tackling the issues of the future today
In October I chaired a panel discussion at the Smart Buildings Show, titled: “Why the industry needs to work together now to address the issues of the future.” What is becoming increasingly obvious is that most, if not all aren’t really the issues of the future, they are the challenges we are facing right now! So how do we address them?
At the Sustainable Places conference in September, Elizabeth Nelson, the co-founder of the Smart Building Certification, argued that simply having a checklist of things to include in a building will fail to meet both the needs of the occupants and sustainability standards, saying: “Smart is solving a problem or optimising something. It’s not a technology. We’ve had greenwashing for quite a while. Now, I believe we have some smart-washing as well, especially in the commercial sector.” It is true that ‘smart’ has become one of the ‘buzzwords’ of the last decade or two but overuse does bring the danger of it becoming a throwaway term devoid of any real meaning. However, the Smart Building
16 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER NOVEMBER 2022
Certification scheme evaluates buildings based on six measures:
1. Building usage (how people use the building)
2. Building performance (sustainability) 3. Building environment (how well the physical space meets users’ needs)
4. Health, safety and security 5. User behaviour and collaboration (how well buildings allow people to work together)
6. Integrative design and connectivity (how well all the tech in the building is integrated with each other – “the least number of solutions for the maximum benefit”)
The lockdown periods brought about by Covid certainly shone a spotlight on at least a couple of these measures, with largely unoccupied commercial buildings still lit up like Christmas trees – exposing their lack of any sort of close control of their building controls. We don’t have room to go into each point in detail here, but to summarise, workspaces that are clean, comfortable and safe are obvious requirements for any business that wants to attract the best staff. The latest advancements in technology allow for smart building controls systems and sensors to be installed, which enable users to optimise their working environment. In conjunction with a Building Energy Management System (BEMS), heating, ventilation and air conditioning can all be set to individuals’ personal preferences. By putting in place the technology that enables occupants to manage their environment easily, building managers will also reap the benefits in energy savings.
In addition to the technology mentioned above, the ways in which both a facilities manager and its occupants can connect with their buildings are becoming simpler through the development of smart building software and apps. A smart building app can bring together all the smart features of a building, such as occupancy monitoring, temperature monitoring and energy monitoring and make the information available instantly on a smartphone or tablet. For the occupants, functions such as lighting and temperature adjustment, digital access systems and room-booking functions create a more user-friendly experience.
Sustainability and the skills gap
Sustainability is a pivotal factor when creating and managing smart buildings, with energy conservation and CO2 reduction and the Net Zero by 2050 target very much the long-
term objectives of building controls. The technology going into buildings will only fulfil these objectives if it is installed and maintained properly by professionally trained building controls engineers. The BCIA has long recognised that there has been a significant gap in skills and the BEMS Controls Engineer Apprenticeship was designed to help fill that gap. Before the apprenticeship programme there was no formal qualification but there are now more than 100 people enrolled on the programme which has been a fantastic success on the part of the employer group that put it together. It is one thing to bring young engineers into the industry, it is another thing to keep them interested and motivated enough that they want to stay there. That is why greater engagement with people entering the industry is vital and the BCIA’s Young Engineers Network (YEN) was launched earlier this year to provide a support network and help young people progress in the building controls industry. It also provides an opportunity for them to showcase projects which they have been involved with and discuss the technical challenges which they face on the wide variety of activities they are working on. One of the highlights for the YEN so far has been a trip to the world famous Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and in October a tour of the Bloomberg Headquarters in London was another fully booked event. I believe future events like this will help to build a really strong community among the young people who will be largely responsible for developing and maintaining a sustainable built environment in the next few decades.
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