{"id":16866,"date":"2019-11-12T11:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T19:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/11\/12\/news-10604\/"},"modified":"2019-11-12T11:00:20","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T19:00:20","slug":"news-10604","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/11\/12\/news-10604\/","title":{"rendered":"As Building Infrastructures Age, Up-to-date Assessments Can Ensure High Performance and Resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Tim Geiger| Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2019 14:00:27 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Changes to a building that occur over time can often make building performance less efficient and less resilient. As time goes on, building use characteristics often diverge from those that were used initially to design and commission a building. A good example of this is improper outside air ventilation rates which can lead to problems with indoor air quality (IAQ), or excess operational costs. Building power and cooling infrastructure components can also wear out and fall out of calibration. As more and more powered equipment gets added, power capacities are exceeded, and unanticipated downtime issues begin to emerge.<\/p>\n

As systems age, they decline in performance, which leads to failures that significantly impact the bottom line. We partner with our customers to implement solutions that keep systems operational by thinking strategically about proactive measures and how those actions impact the business over time.<\/p>\n

\"building <\/p>\n

At Stark Tech Group, we work as a Schneider Electric EcoXpert<\/a>\"\u2122\" Partner with expertise in their EcoStruxure\"\u2122\" Building architecture and building automation<\/a>. Our engineers encounter many situations where building owners need help improving existing building performance.<\/p>\n

A perfect example is a research facility that examines proteins and crystals in their research of bacteria and virus-borne diseases. The facility recently decided to upgrade its installed base of microscopes in response to pharmaceutical customer demand for more accuracy. Their existing building power infrastructure supported a 1-megawatt (MW) power switch, which was previously adequate as the building consumed 600 kW of power on an average day, and nosed up to 800 KW on the hottest of summer days when air conditioning systems work at full capacity.<\/p>\n

Given the required upgrade, a cost effective, steady power supply with peaks in excess of 1MW was now required in order to accommodate stringent purity requirements and to avoid losing both data and research samples.<\/p>\n

Our solution was to implement a lithium-ion-based energy storage solution physically located inside of the building. The battery selected for this purpose supplies stored power to the facility when demand spikes over 1MW and then recharges from the grid.\u00a0 This cost-effective change to the lab\u2019s existing power infrastructure successfully managed the building\u2019s increased power capacity requirements and helped the research lab remain competitive in their market.<\/p>\n

Approaches for validating current building requirements<\/h2>\n

For organizations seeking to ensure consistent building power, cooling, and building automation performance, here are some preliminary steps that should be taken to validate requirements:<\/p>\n