Building controls are a combination of automated software and physical components which control the building's operational systems such as its heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, and alarms. All these systems require energy, and building controls ensure comfortable buildings, using as little energy as possible.
Building controls might be referred to as Building Management Systems (BMS), Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) or Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS). They are in every building - either added at the design stage or retrofitted into existing buildings.
Control systems are able to:
- enhance building operational efficiency (meaning it wastes less energy, water, and electricity), to meet sustainability goals.
- using weather forecasts in automatic comfort & efficiency decisions ahead of time
- automatically switching off lighting and heating in an unoccupied area
- schedule equipment to turn off when not needed
- automatically operate equipment with ‘softer’ control to prolong the life of expensive plant items
- schedule maintenance of equipment ahead of time
- adapting the environment by using data on the number of people in the building to control the heating and fresh air supply, building controls can learn how buildings respond and automatically adapt to constantly tune their efficiency
- re-use waste heat (i.e. from kitchen) to heat water supplies
- simplify the management of the building by reporting any disturbances (such as power outages) to the building technicians. With emails, texts, etc it is now possible to automatically alert technicians about a fault before building occupants have even noticed. Some faults getting reported, actioned and repaired before being noticed!
Who uses building controls?
Everyone who ever steps foot in the building is part of the control strategy, even if they are not the ones turning it on! Building designers, contractors, and manufacturers work together to provide a building with functional utilities, security and access systems, visitor signage, occupant comfort and space management. Occupants might then manually change their environment by switching lighting on/off or the heating up/down. Whether this is at home, in an office, factory or hotel room, building controls are everywhere and increasingly important to comfort, wellbeing and moving to a lower carbon economy.
Building occupants often interact with the building using a combination of hardware (physical) and software (digital) devices. Facilities managers use the data provided by building controls to plan and pre-empt maintenance, prolonging the life-cycle of plant & equipment and reducing costs associated with plant failure. Visitors to the building may use security systems, such as check-in via a screen or using a security pass to get through the electric gates.