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While schools continue to face cutbacks and smaller budgets in the current economic climate, we must also be reminded that building automation systems (BAS) have helped us use major building systems more efficiently, cut down on energy usage, and have played a significant role in doing more with less. The mentality could be that we can run our BAS on “autopilot” and save even more money on personnel costs. That mindset could not be further from the truth and has the potential to wipe out any savings previously realized. This means that we are still a long way from discontinuing the need for a skilled technician to monitor energy usage and building automation systems. One case in point is that of Upper Merion Area School District in King of Prussia, PA which has experienced this firsthand.

Special thanks to Fred Remelius, the Building and Grounds Supervisor for Upper Merion, who sent us the graph below identifying a problem they had when their BAS crashed while on autopilot. The graph shows energy usage prior, during, and after implementing their BAS. Once they implemented their BAS under the proper programming and monitoring by a skilled technician, energy usage took a nose-dive, illustrating how it should be managed.

As Fred pointed out, “The lesson to be learned is that school districts can save a lot of money if they really optimize their BAS, but if you don’t monitor (“fly”) it every day with a good BAS operator (“pilot”) and just leave it on autopilot, the BAS will eventually crash and all of your savings will go up in flames.”

Fred’s point is easy to see in the graph. This is an excellent example of why we can’t afford to place all our eggs in one basket when managing facilities. In this example, a failure occurred with the BAS that resulted in much higher energy usage. This was not noticed until several months after the failure, which resulted in higher energy usage and costs.

That’s why SchoolDude highly encourages the use of its utility tracking module, UtilityDirect, to document energy costs and usage as well provide alerts when abnormalities with either occur. It starts and ends with the bills. If you don’t know what you’re consuming and how much it’s costing you, then you don’t know what your optimal benchmarks are. Awareness in itself can make a difference in your efforts to save on cost and use. Couple that with a Building Automation System and you can save even more. So make sure you are covered and not betting everything on one piece of equipment or application to manage energy usage.

Tags: autopilot, BAS, building automation system, energy, utility tracking, utilitydirect

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