Chocolate, Vanilla, or Strawberry: What flavour of BeMS do you want?

See:

• SSE and the COVID-19 Outbreak
• How to use building services to help prevent the spread of COVID-19
• 10 things to make your building safer from COVID-19

The above blogs show a range of things that can be done to prevent the spread of the disease. Some, such as opening windows or closing toilet lids before flushing, are not part of the BeMS strategy, although you would still want to do them.

The primary aim is to prevent infection using a range of BeMS activities such as increasing ventilation, setting fan coils to always-on, etc. Often these measures will directly increase energy use but reducing the possibility of infection remains the top priority.

This will have implications for new builds as extra capacity will need to be built into the design of HVAC systems to meet the on-going increased load required by the new strategies.

Additional measures to enforce new occupancy rules may also be needed. Here CO2 sensors can be used to determine whether maximum occupancy is being maintained. Other sensors such as thermography on entry points may be used to determine if someone has a temperature.

SSE can help by providing risk assessments of occupant safety in your building, and carrying out work to change the control strategy for maximum safety.

Occupant comfort

Once reassured that the building is safe, people’s normal instincts return and questions such as “Am I too hot” “Is it cold in here?”, and “what’s that smell?” will resume. Assuming that safety is assured, occupant comfort will still a very significant concern and part of the overall issue of wellbeing.

Online shopping has created many challenges for retail and providing an enjoyable occupant experience is essential in creating footfall. The requirement to pay university tuition fees has led students to expect a high standard in both teaching and accommodation spaces.

The use of IoT sensors and controls enable you to provide greater comfort, better air quality, and better facilities. SSE can help.

Guarantee of service

In industrial or scientific facilities, the primary aim is to keep operations running. In supermarkets, the failure of a refrigerator or freezer can result in an expensive loss of stock. Ensuring that the organisation’s normal operations continue uninterrupted is far more important than energy savings.

PPM

All systems can be subject to failures. Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) is the most effective way to ensure that this doesn’t happen by checking frequently and replacing components before they fail. SFG20 is the gold standard for planned maintenance and specifies both the actions required and the frequency with which they should be performed.

SSE can provide PPM to the SFG20 standard, or tailored to the specific additional needs of your organisation, using a combination of remote-access and on-site working.

IT network

See BeMS and the IT network

BeMS systems rely on network and IT systems. The network covers everything that the BeMS needs to talk to its endpoints. This can be anything from the router that is managing the data, the switch that transports it, or down to the fibre and copper cable that the data travels across. The server is then responsible for presenting this data to the end-user and saving and storing the events that are happening. All of this is generally covered by IT teams. As with all things in the mechanical and electrical sphere, these systems need to be constantly monitored and maintained.

Maintaining the servers can resolve many issues before they occur and prevent their becoming more serious problems than needed. For instance;

• Being able to see an impending hard drive failure, before they fail and take down the server;
• Performing updates to the system so the server is patched to its latest version removing vulnerabilities.

You’re not on your own. Talk to SSE about a maintenance and monitoring solution for IT network management, or for real-time alerts and pro-active fixes before system issues arise. Let us help and find your blind-spot.

Cyber-security

See 10 steps to cyber security for your BeMS

Even if your BeMS is not connected to the internet or your corporate IT network, it can still be vulnerable to attack by disgruntled employees using CDs or memory sticks.

User access and password control are an important part of keeping your systems safe. Regular backups also protect you from hardware failures or ransomware attacks.

Let SSE manage your cyber-security by controlling accounts and passwords and installing software updates, either on-site or remotely.

Keep up-to-date

See:

• 10 reasons to upgrade from Windows 7
• 10 reasons to upgrade to Desigo CC
• 10 reasons to upgrade to IQVision

Most components and software have finite lifetimes, after which they are no longer supported by the manufacturer. Once out of support, replacement parts cannot be obtained. Out of support software means that will be no more update patches in response to new threats.

Keeping up to date means that you can access new features and functionality and are protected from new threats.

SSE can put in place a planned upgrade programme for your BeMS and head-end operating system, to ensure that your operations are safe from failure and downtime.

BEI

See:

• Business Energy Intelligence™ (BEI) – Take control of your energy and carbon: Part 1, Part 2
• See SECR: What it means for businesses and how it will help improve energy efficiency
• See Updates to the BEI™ Energy Optimisation platform
• See Energy efficiency has been directly responsible for 25% of the UK’s economic growth since 1971

Business Energy Intelligence (BEI), our energy optimisation platform, will help you to identify excess energy use which you can eliminate using your BeMS

Sub metering

See If You Don't Measure It You Can't Manage It

Sub-metering allows you to measure the energy use of individual pieces of plant or other equipment.

SSE can install sub-metering to help you to understand your energy use.