Smart Commercial Building Automation: The Future of the Electrical Industry
As technology advances, so does the way we do business. Commercial building automation is one of the many things shaping the future of the electrical industry. As these changes happen, vendors, suppliers, and electricians have to learn to adapt to meet customers’ needs to have a connected building. So, what is commercial building automation, and how is it affecting the electrical industry? Let’s explore.
What Is Commercial Building Automation?
Commercial building automation is the automatic centralized control of a building’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning, lighting, and other systems through a building management system or building automation system (BAS).
What Are the Types of Commercial Building Automation Systems?
Commercial Building Automation Systems (BASs) have five key technology segments: heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting, fire and life safety, security and access controls. Building management systems (BMSs) integrate these five products into one integrated control network.
Smoke evacuation reduces the circulation of smoke, gases, and airborne chemicals and directs them outside the building rather than emitting them inside the building. A control/monitoring system maintains the building temperature within a set range by monitoring and managing the air condition (HVAC) systems. Auto-override is achieved by managing the HVAC system by overriding the predetermined scheduling conditions.
As per an industry report b IndustryArc, the building automation products can be put under the Lighting Control Systems, HVAC Control Systems, Security and Access Control Systems, and Other categories. Commercial and industrial facilities are the major end users of BAS products and services in the U.S. The HVAC controls segment, the security and access controls segment, and lighting controls are the key technological segments for the US market.
How Will BASs Impact Electricians, Electrical Contractors, and the Electrical Industry?
Traditionally, contractors specialized in HVAC have been working on BAS during the installation process. As time goes by, the systems are becoming sophisticated and automated, making installation work more comprehensive and more capable. This change has made installation work shift to low-voltage wiring. Laws in 33 U.S. states only allow licensed electricians to perform low-voltage wiring.
So the responsibilities of an electrician fall under the following major categories such as “routing and pulling wire, either through conduit or within building walls,” “terminating and installing jacks and faceplates at wire ends,” “installing routers, boosters, and other network devices,” and “inserting power taps into the lines where necessary to provide power to remote devices.” Electricians must be trained and licensed to perform these duties. As new skills are becoming imperative to handle the troubleshooting of advanced commercial BAS, it will require many low-voltage electricians to gain new skills. For example, during installation of control systems, they might be required to use an oscilloscope to analyze line interference and understand the basic building blocks of network data. Also, due to the integration of the systems, handling security issues is of paramount importance. So the electricians have put in firewalls and take care of other basic security precautions as this has become a very basic skill for the BAS electricians.
Finding a job with BAS as an electrician is becoming easier by the day and there will be a constant demand for installation and maintenance technicians because almost every major new commercial construction is implementing one or the other form of BAS. It is becoming more and more imperative for electricians to gain the required licenses/degrees/certificates to be eligible to work safely on the commercial low-voltage building automation systems.
To adapt to the changes in the building automation system (BAS), the electricians would need to learn new skills such as system integration, data installing, and IoT and installation techniques. As per the Electrical Contractor magazine’s biennial 2018 Profile of the Electrical Contractor, there is an increase in non-traditional work for electrical contractors such as building automation, communications/data systems, control systems, and building systems’ integration. The magazine also states that 72% of electrical contractors have worked on some aspect of automation/control systems even though the work for HVAC controls declined; 63% worked on low-voltage with integrated systems in install lighting.
The commercial BAS comprises communication and control computing devices and tools to assist automated systems to improve operational, energy efficiencies, and occupant comfort. This, in turn, meets clients’ sustainability targets and minimizes utility costs. Building automation systems present in over 50% of all buildings with an area of over 100,000 sq. ft. save between 5 and 15 percent of the total energy consumption of the building. Buildings that consume more energy such as old or poorly maintained buildings can save up to 30% of their energy.
According to a study by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the energy consumption of a commercial building can be reduced by 29% if currently developed and properly tuned controls are deployed. The savings of 29% by commercial buildings is equivalent to 4-5% of the energy consumed for the U.S. The study also reveals that even though all commercial buildings could have 29% energy savings on average, buildings such as standalone retail stores and auto dealerships can save approximately 41% on their energy consumption.
In summary, commercial BASs technologies have led to an improvement in lifestyle and saving of utility costs due to minimal use of energy. Due to this, electricians are finding it easy to get jobs courtesy of new knowledge and training they are undergoing to perform low-voltage wiring. Industrially, BASs has been a game changer as automated commercial buildings are saving up to 29% of energy.