A BEMS-Assisted Commissioning Tool to Improve the Energy Performance of HVAC Systems

Abstract

The evolving capabilities of Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) offer new opportunities to automate some parts of the commissioning process and can generate benefits over the entire life of a building. These benefits include a reduction of process cost and manual effort on site, improved quality assurance process and the adoption of automated energy audit capabilities to improve overall building performance. This paper presents the concept for a new automated commissioning tool that verifies and optimizes the performance of building HVAC systems using the capabilities of BEMS. The tool is applicable mainly to commercial and institutional buildings. In its simplest form, the tool monitors building control data and stores it in a structured database to be used online or upon request. Data resulting from standardized test procedures invoked manually or automatically are also stored in the database. A reasoning algorithm performs an intelligent analysis of the monitored data and also performs additional automated commissioning of HVAC components and systems, identifying faults, diagnosing them, and evaluating the potential energy efficiency improvements. The process is completed by sending detailed comprehensive reports to the user. This paper also includes an example showing how an automated BEMS-assisted commissioning tool can potentially be applied to improve the energy performance of variable-air-volume fan systems.