Intelligent buildings sell like pigs fly - only more slowly

Paul Ehrlich's piece in the latest issue of Intelligent Buildings Today is off the point. In fact, the article only makes the usual blah-blah points about why a building owner should buy into the "intelligent building" concept. These points don't match reality. Let's look at a few of them.

"It is not acceptable to consider investing in intelligent attributes of a project, unless you can prove that there will an acceptable return on investment."

Here is a fact: you can't prove anything to a building owner. The best you can do is get them to buy into your concept. The usual "proofs" to building owners are usually offset by the owner's reality-check to your face. Attractive ROIs look good but they are no better than the spreadsheet that manipulated the numbers. Owner's simply won't believe them. Need "proof". Look around at what type of building is installed with so-called intelligent controls: schools, hospitals, colleges and other owner-occupied buildings. These building owners are driven by a different set of motivations. They don't need "proof". Developers? For the most part, forget them. The vast majority do their intelligent building math with a different type of calculator.

"Adding intelligent features to a building will allow it to operate more efficiently, reducing both energy usage and expense."

Maybe. Probably not. There are precious few buildings that are operated more efficiently just because they have intelligent features. Why? Because there are precious few facility managers who have the time to learn the system features let alone use them. Fact: so-called intelligent features really boil down to a PC on the facility managers desk with some clever (or meaningless) graphics that tell him "yep, it's running" or "nope, it's not running". The controls industry, as a whole, has done very little to improve the facility operators experience. And that's over the 30 years that variations of intelligent controls have been on the market. Very little.

"...intelligent buildings provide tools to optimize the staffing and operation of the building..."

Agreed. The tools are often there. But they are tools that a high school freshman can learn in one afternoon not the tools that a facility manager needs for sustained management effort. Why are these tools, for the most part, dumbed down? (OK, so some of you will take me task for this but just look at the tools supplied over the years to the building owners. In a word, they "suck". They are either too technical or too complicated to navigate or too something to be more than just barely useful.)

"improved building systems and technology...providing a better experience for the occupant."

Maybe. But probably not much detectable improvement. DDC controls are way beyond pneumatics. Other problems often overshadow intelligent controls like bad air distribution and uneven supply air temperatures. The truth is most owners want the best for their occupants but they are driven by other forces such as first cost, marginal engineering, internal politics and a host of other factors. It's very hard to make a financially justifable argument that better DDC controls will lead to better occupant experience and that will lead to more productivity and reduced cost. The reverse can be proven through everyday experience - "this building is always too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer" so I was distracted all day. But when a building operates as it should, the occupants shouldn't even notice their surrounding environment. It should just "be there". Show me the building owner who is convinced the building occupants are more productive and that yields huge gains. Name one!

Developer-owned building "energy savings is seen by the tenant and not the building owner."

Show me the tenant who says "boy, I'm sure glad my energy cost saved me $0.30/sf this year out of my $18.00/sf lease cost. I feel a lot better about this lease now." It just doesn't happen. You also never see the developer sitting down with the tenant and saying "how about those energy savings!" Duh. Developers are a very hard sell on this point. Get ready to have this argument blown off.

"Buildings... with improved technology, comfort, safety, and productive space is more desirable to tenants."

Maybe. Who makes the decision for the tenant? Someone who knows buildings? Probably not. Usually the financial or legal person on the tenant's staff makes the final decision. Technology is important, you say? Sometimes. Tenants often like to hear that they can make an adjustment to their thermostats within bounds. But how many thermostats actually work this way? Few, I suggest. What about "safety". What about it? Are you suggesting a building is safer with DDC controls over a conventional building? I hope not. More "productive space"? Prove it. You can make an emotional argument to the prospective tenant, as a good salesman would, but where is the proof? Maybe a productive study would be helpful. But this entire line of thinking is only marginally useful.

"The expectation is that when a tenant has to select between similar buildings, the one that is intelligent will tend to get better occupancy rates and improved rents..."

If you are an experienced tenant, I would agree. If the tenant is focused on space colors, office layout, wall textures or carpeting they won't get it. They simply won't buy "improved rents". It just never happens. Tenants expect the HVAC system to work properly. Period. If it doesn't they will call the landlord and complain - everyday if necessary. Then they will leave as soon as the lease is up. So what. The next gullible tenant will buy into the space as wonderful, blah, blah, blah....

OK, some of this does not apply to big tenants who buy lots of space. But even the so-called sophisticated tenants will get caught up in issues like access from the Interstate or exterior appearance. Better rents are probablematic, at best.

Look at the typical building based industry averages table (1). Here the energy savings is expected to be 12% with operational and other savings totalling another 19%. (That's an incredible 29% savings - no building owner is going to buy that high a number.) Actually the energy savings is low, if the building is properly managed. There could easily be another 8 to 15 % in energy savings. Most buildings are a basket case after a few years. Energy creep is all over the place. Operational savings, at 10%, is a bit of stretch too. Why? Because maintenance is assigned by man power. Some buildings get half a "man" while others get a whole "man". They don't get "man" percentages. Where are you going to get a 10% "man" improvement? Pull a "man" off a building for 1 hour a day to work on another building? I don't think so. Building owners won't look at this argument seriously. Here's why.

First they have a hard enough time finding anyone capable of keeping a building in good maintenance condition. Good people are really hard to find. A good building maintenance person, or crew, will easily stay up with tenant complaints. A marginal team will lose 10% every hour.

Second, the overwhelming majority of buildings (perhaps every single building in the world) is complaint-driven. No complaints - no problems. Got complaints? Then let's fix the HVAC (or whatever) problem so we never get another complaint from that tenant again. Let's keep the boiler on all summer, day and night, that ought to do it. No, complaint-driven building maintenance will never save 10% of anything let alone operating expenses.

Paul doesn't have it right. It's not about selling ROI. It's about selling job sustainability - for the building owner and supervisory staff. The question is: will installing an intelligent building controls system save me from complaints, expensive outside maintenance charges and whining tenants.

Everytime I see the expression "intelligent building" I'm reminded of the HAL 9000 computer as Dave was pulling memory cartridges from it's core "Dave, I'm losing my mind. Dave... Daaave...."

What this world needs is a modern DDC-equipped building run by intelligent people.

More on "job sustainability" in another post. There's more to this.....

The Great BACnet debate

I've watched the postings on the BACnet list server for the past two years and have not seen much debate - until recently. It seems that the ugly truth for all protocols is now reaching the discussion stage. The question is: how are proprietary features in different vendor's BACnet products to be handled with regard to interoperability? Why are there proprietary features at all? How can a voluntary protocol management process succeed in getting agreement among vendors?

Well it's tough. Just look at the internal debate now going on. It's always been fasinating to watch various vendors jockey for position in the HVAC and PLC product world. Back in the late '80s General Motors decreed that all of their plants will go with MAP (Manufacturing Automation Protocol) and their suppliers had better do the same - because this is a "new" world and GM is leading the charge. Well MAP flopped. It was expensive. It was clumsey. It was built on a broadband backbone that was very inappropriate. OK, back in the '80s there really wasn't another approach. Ethernet also was clumsy. Big coax cable. Small coax cable. And there was very little 10BaseT around. Prices were relatively high for whatever option you chose.

But MAP was never to happen. It was an imposed solution. Clearly there was a problem in the GM, Ford and Chrysler plants. But the problem was not of the same magnitude in their supplier plants (except for what is now Delphi and Visteon). But that is not the case for BACnet.

BACnet has a chance to lay out a communication scheme that provides true interoperability. I doubt, however, that it will ever happen. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

The most recent proposal by David Fisher to provide a type of XML file to describe customer properties is on target. Maybe David can lead the charge and make it all happen. He certainly is trying.

The problem is that the building automation industry is chasing a technical problem (which, granted, may be the only type of problem they can chase) while customers don't care. That's right. They really don't care. So what that a few proprietary variables or properties cannot be seen through the standard protocol description. Virtually 99% of all customers don't care. They can barely manage their buildings with the tools they have now! They are overloaded with management issues and people details.

No. The BACnet discussions are needed but not sufficient. This topic needs to be explored more.

What is was, was "Energy Management"

The term "Energy Management" has been kicking around for the past 30 years, at least. In the mid '70s everyone was talking "Energy Management". All you needed was a the latest and greatest HVAC controls technology from "big time temperature controls company" to make it happen. Small guys swooped in to grab a piece of the market but they, almost to a company, couldn't sustain themselves.

Over time "Energy Management" became energy management, a lower case expression. It was only part of the solution to saving energy in buildings. First you needed a decent temperature control system then you could implement and energy management program using these computer-based tools. Enlightment... eventually.

But look around today. Where is there a building that really implements energy management? There are very few. Maybe there are none. Only pretenders.

The problem is this: you can't conserve energy if you don't measure it. More precisely you can't be sure you are saving energy if you don't measure it accurately. You need to account for weather, obviously, occupancy, changes in construction, and changes in use. So how many buildings track actual energy usage, day by day or week by week?

This is the issue to be explored in this blog. The energy used and energy conserved must first be measured. Only then can the success of energy management programs be evaluated.

(The title may remind those of you old enough to remember the Andy Griffith audio skit "What it was, was football".)