New BAS Developments  – Exciting or Good Marketing?

Ira Goldschmidt, P.E., LEED®AP Engineering Consultant, Goldschmidt Engineering Solutions ira.goldschmidt@comcast.net Contributing Editor As published   October Issue - BAS Column

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There are some interesting new BAS technology developments that manufacturers are touting on their websites.  This is welcome news since BAS advances in the recent past have mainly been about web-server operator interfaces and interoperability. 

Web servers have now become the defacto approach to the operator interface, and the products continue to improve their ease-of-use across a wider-variety of devices besides PCs.  Interoperability continues on a path of providing more functionality and becoming easier to implement across a greater variety of BASs and other types of systems.  However, neither of these advances have made BASs easier to install and use overall, and, more importantly, substantively better at improving building comfort & energy efficiency. 

Are there any new developments that may actually improve the control that BAS’s provide while also decreasing installer and operator efforts?

What Makes a BAS Development Exciting?
BAS R&D has long focused on flexibility given the wide variety of applications involved.  This has made systems harder to install and use.  BAS manufacturers now need to focus on developments that simplify the installation/operation needed for improved comfort and energy-efficiency.  This requires the use of AI and “Big Data” advances that have already revolutionized other industries. 

Revolutionary BAS developments would include configuration tools that anticipate (e.g., pattern match) the project’s database and programming, self-document the programming, include data analytics (which can then perhaps even make self-corrections) and create the data relationships that are needed to support the features.

The BAS industry has not yet shown a full-out commitment to these types of revolutionary developments, so I am looking for “exciting” hints that they are going in this direction even those that seem only to make a system a bit easier to install.

What Are Some Exciting New BAS Developments?

• Controllers using Power over the Internet (PoE) communications so that separate power wiring is not needed.  This is more of an “easier-to-install” item.
• Pneumatic ASC’s – These controllers provide a much easier path towards completing the “last mile” in DDC retrofits, which is a cost-effective replacement to the millions of pneumatic VAV box thermostats still being used in many buildings.  They typically use wireless communications and interface with a box’s pneumatic volume controller & actuator to further reduce the cost.  This solution isn’t perfect since the volume controller remains in place (a device known to drift or fail readily) but if it helps to get pneumatic thermostats finally out of our buildings, I’m all for it.  I’d call this a revolutionary short-term fix.
• Facility analytics (FDD) has become an important overlay for BAS’s, but it is costly and complicated to implement so it may never see widespread use in most buildings.  ASHRAE 90.1-2016 now requires some minimum levels of FDD (e.g., for detecting economizer operation problems).  This type of smaller-scale FDD makes a perfect value-added, built-in feature for BAS’s.  It is also something that can be seen as revolutionary if expanded sufficiently without increasing BAS setup time.
• Database “Semantic Tagging” – This is a trend that is being forced upon BAS installers due to the use of overlay FDD’s.  It involves adding more information to the point/object database to allow FDD to be able to see the relationships between rooms, sensors, and associated terminal controllers; along with the associated AHU’s and central plants.  Currently, this is generally achieved by embedding the information in point/object names.  However, some BAS’s are expanding their point/object database structure to include this information as separate items.  This has the added benefit of allowing these relationships to be viewed by operators for easier troubleshooting purposes, something that has typically been only implied at best within a BAS installation.  This definitely can be seen as revolutionary especially if it also helps lead to an easier sequence of operation programming which is self-documenting, and maybe even do some self-correcting (auto-tuning PID anyone?).
  

Final Word
The BAS industry has a bevy of technological advances to draw from that could allow for revolutionary changes in their systems.  Are the above the first glimpse of these changes or are they merely exercises in checking off convenient marketing boxes?

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