Intelligent buildings hampered by dumb builders

Intelligent building systems capable of automatically adjusting heating, cooling and lighting to slash energy use are being ignored by many construction firms who are failing to exploit the commercial and carbon benefits offered by such technologies.

That is the view of a panel of industry experts gathered at a sustainable building roundtable event in London this week, who argued that many construction firms are failing to adequately integrate intelligent building systems into their project planning.

Intelligent buildings systems refer to a raft of environmental control technologies that tie together sensors, IT systems and building systems in order to ensure that buildings are automatically optimised to enhance energy efficiency and improve comfort. For example, windows and cooling systems can be wired up to ensure the air conditioning turns off when a window is opened, or blinds can be automated to shut when the sun is out.

"You start to get an automated understanding of cause and effect throughout the building," explained Rajesh Sinha, technical services director at Bailey Teswaine, the IT arm of building services firm NG Bailey. "You can provide genuinely intelligent buildings where the environment is always optimised."

He cited as an example a recent project where the company had integrated a hotel's booking system with its environmental controls. "The system knew when a room was going to be occupied so was able to only turn the air conditioning an hour before the guest arrived," he explained. "It was also able to manage bookings so whole floors could be kept empty and completely shut down saving more energy."

NG Bailey said that such systems had played a key role in cutting energy use at its soon to be opened office in Strathclyde by 95 per cent compared to a conventional office. "When we started work on the plans we calculated an ROI [return on investment] period of under 10 years," explained the company's marketing and sustainability manager Cal Bailey. "But since then energy prices have gone up so the return period should be shorter still."

Mike Morris, business development manager at IT giant Cisco, which provides networking systems that underpin intelligent buildings, said that in addition to energy savings such technologies can also deliver further cost savings through improved energy contracts. "You can use intelligent building systems to get a much more reliable prediction of your energy use and even cap it at a set level, " he explained. "Having that kind of information can help you negotiate better rates with suppliers."

However, despite these benefits, installations of intelligent buildings remain rare with critics claiming that poor project management processes and the building industry's long-standing suspicion of IT systems have hampered wider adoption of such systems.

"We expect our cars to have all kinds of intelligent environmental controls now, but for buildings it is a huge missed opportunity," said Bailey. "Not enough people think about these technologies at the planning stage."

Even where intelligent building systems are used, installation is often complicated by the fact they are simply added to the finished building at the end of a project, according to Sinha. "Firms tend to sign off the building as complete and then sign off the IT," he observed. "But with intelligent buildings the two are interrelated and need to be signed off together. Where we've seen these systems work, it is where the building and IT teams work closely together from the start."

John Alker of the Green Building Council agreed that building services engineers needed to be involved at the design of a construction project to ensure intelligent building systems are installed effectively. "The technology is not at fault here, nor its inclusion within the building, rather that the implications of operating the technology post-construction requires a lot of planning and appropriate training for building services engineers and managers," he said. "It's better to involve building services engineers at the design stage, and also to feed back into the design process the results of post-construction and post-occupancy evaluations so that the technology, if necessary, supports enhanced building performance."