Developing Flexible, Networked Lighting Control Systems That Reliably Save Energy in California Buildings

An important strategy to meet California's ambitious energy efficiency goals is to use innovative wireless communications, embedded sensors, data analytics and controls to significantly reduce lighting energy use in commercial buildings. This project developed a suite of networked lighting solutions to further this goal. The technologies include a platform for low-cost sensing, distributed intelligence and communications, the “PermaMote,” which is a self-powered sensor and controller for lighting applications. The project team also developed a task ambient daylighting system that integrates sensors with data-driven daylighting control using an open communication interface, called the “Readings-At-Desk” (RAD) system. To address the problem of building occupants being confused about how to operate traditional lighting control systems, the research team created content that could be the basis for a user interface standard for lighting controls. Finally, to address the difficulty of ensuring that advanced lighting control systems actually deliver their promised energy savings, the project team developed a new method for evaluating and specifying lighting systems’ performance. The research team validated these technologies in the laboratory, showing significant lighting energy savings, up to 73% for the PermaMote sensor system from occupancy control and daylight dimming features, compared to the same light source (LED replacement lamps) operated via simple on/off scheduling. The project team also developed a proposed standard lighting data model and user interface elements, which were contributed to the ANSI Lighting Systems Committee (C137) for standardization. Existing data models are incomplete and inconsistent, whereas the lighting-specific data model developed here is clear and comprehensive, to serve as a starting point for creating common, universally agreed upon semantic definitions of key lighting parameters, to promote interoperability. For the task on verifiable performance of lighting systems, the project team developed a more effective metric for capturing the actual energy impact of a lighting system over time — the energy usage intensity (kWh/ft2/year). Three commercial lighting systems were tested in FLEXLAB® using this new metric, and the tests show a wide range in the accuracy of the self-reported energy-use metric, from 0.5% to 28% error compared to direct measurement of lighting energy using dedicated submeters. Overall, the project team estimates that these advanced technologies can reduce California office lighting energy use by 20% (above and beyond normal advanced lighting controls mandated by Title 24), resulting in about 1,600 GWh/year in savings

Deputy Director

Nonresidential Buildings to be effective on July 1, 2014 now include the following Energy Commission approved and adopted Nonsubstantive errata

Operations & Maintenance Best Practices - A Guide to Achieving Operational Efficiency (Release 3)

This guide highlights operations and maintenance programs targeting energy and water efficiency that are estimated to save 5% to 20% on energy bills without a significant capital investment. The purpose of this guide is to provide you, the Operations and Maintenance (O&M)/Energy manager and practitioner, with useful information about O&M management, technologies, energy and water efficiency, and cost-reduction approaches. To make this guide useful and to reflect your needs and concerns, the authors met with O&M and Energy managers via Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) workshops. In addition, the authors conducted extensive literature searches and contacted numerous vendors and industry experts. The information and case studies that appear in this guide resulted from these activities. It needs to be stated at the outset that this guide is designed to provide information on effective O&M as it applies to systems and equipment typically found at Federal facilities. This guide is not designed to provide the reader with step-by-step procedures for performing O&M on any specific piece of equipment. Rather, this guide first directs the user to the manufacturer's specifications and recommendations. In no way should the recommendations in this guide be used in place of manufacturer's recommendations. The recommendations in this guide are designed to supplement those of the manufacturer, or, as is all too often the case, provide guidance for systems and equipment for which all technical documentation has been lost. As a rule, this guide will first defer to the manufacturer's recommendations on equipment operation and maintenance

O&M Best Practices - A Guide to Achieving Operational Efficiency (Release 2.0)

This guide, sponsored by DOE's Federal Energy Management Program, highlights operations and maintenance (O&M) programs targeting energy efficiency that are estimated to save 5% to 20% on energy bills without a significant capital investment. The purpose of this guide is to provide the federal O&M energy manager and practitioner with useful information about O&M management, technologies, energy efficiency and cost-reduction approaches

Integração de dados de sensores e gestão de ambientes inteligentes

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaNum mundo de constante desenvolvimento tecnológico e acelerado crescimento populacional, observa-se um aumento da utilização de recursos energéticos. Sendo os edifícios responsáveis por uma grande parte deste consumo energético, desencadeiam-se vários esforços de investigações de forma a criarem-se edifícios energeticamente eficientes e espaços inteligentes. Esta dissertação visa, numa primeira fase, apresentar uma revisão das atuais soluções que combinam sistemas de automação de edifícios e a Internet das Coisas. Posteriormente, é apresentada uma solução de automação para edifícios, com base em princípios da Internet das Coisas e explorando as vantagens de sistemas de processamento complexo de eventos, de forma a fornecer uma maior integração dos múltiplos sistemas existentes num edifício. Esta solução é depois validada através de uma implementação, baseada em protocolos leves desenhados para a Internet das Coisas, plataformas de alto desempenho, e métodos complexos para análise de grandes fluxos de dados. Esta implementação é ainda aplicada num cenário real, e será usada como a solução padrão para gestão e automação num edifício existente.In a world of constant technological development and accelerated population growth, an increased use of energy resources is being observed. With buildings responsible for a large share of this energy consumption, a lot of research activities are pursued with the goal to create energy efficient buildings and smart spaces. This dissertation aims to, in a first stage, present a review of the current solutions combining Building Automation Systems (BAS) and Internet of Things (IoT). Then, a solution for building automation is presented based on IoT principles and exploiting the advantages of Complex Event Processing (CEP) systems, to provide higher integration of the multiple building subsystems. This solution was validated through an implementation, based on standard lightweight protocols designed for IoT, high performance and real time platforms, and complex methods for analysis of large streams of data. The implementation is also applied to a real world scenario, and will be used as a standard solution for management and automation of an existing buildin

Wide area detection system: Conceptual design study

An integrated sensor for traffic surveillance on mainline sections of urban freeways is described. Applicable imaging and processor technology is surveyed and the functional requirements for the sensors and the conceptual design of the breadboard sensors are given. Parameters measured by the sensors include lane density, speed, and volume. The freeway image is also used for incident diagnosis

WOFEX 2021 : 19th annual workshop, Ostrava, 1th September 2021 : proceedings of papers

The workshop WOFEX 2021 (PhD workshop of Faculty of Electrical Engineer-ing and Computer Science) was held on September 1st September 2021 at the VSB – Technical University of Ostrava. The workshop offers an opportunity for students to meet and share their research experiences, to discover commonalities in research and studentship, and to foster a collaborative environment for joint problem solving. PhD students are encouraged to attend in order to ensure a broad, unconfined discussion. In that view, this workshop is intended for students and researchers of this faculty offering opportunities to meet new colleagues.Ostrav

Assessment of applications of optimisation to building design and energy modelling

Buildings account for around 35% of the world’s carbon emissions and strategies to reduce carbon emissions have made much use of building energy modelling. Optimisation techniques promise new ways of achieving the most cost effective and efficient solutions more quickly and with less input from engineers and building physicists. However, there is limited research into the practical applications of these techniques to building design practice. This thesis presents the results of case-based research into the practical application of design stage optimisation and calibration methods to energy efficient building fabric and services design using building energy modelling. The application during early stage design of a Non-dominating Sorting Genetic Algorithm 2 (NSGA2) to a building energy model EnergyPlusTM. The exercise was used to determine if the application of NSGA2 yielded a significant improvement in the selection of building services technology and building fabric elements. The use of NSGA2 enabled significant (£400,000) capital cost savings without degrading the comfort or energy performance. The potential capital cost savings significantly outweighed the cost of the engineering time required to carry out the additional analysis. Three optimisation techniques were applied to three case study buildings to select appropriate model parameters to minimise the difference between modelled and measured parameters and hence calibrate the model. An heuristic approach was applied to the Institute for Life Sciences Building 1 (ILS1) at Swansea University. Latin Hypercube Monte Carlo (LHMC) was applied to the Arup building at 8 Fitzroy St London and compared directly with the results from an approach using Self Adaptive Differential Evolution (SADE). Poor Building Management System data quality was found to significantly limit the potential to calibrate models. Where robust data was available it was however found to be possible to calibrate EnergyPlus simulations of complex real world buildings using LHMC and SADE methods at levels close to that required by professional bodies