Intelligent Infrastructure: Transforming Building Energy Management with IoT and Azure
Microsoft Technologies
Azure IoT Central, IoT Hub, Event Hub, Azure Time Series Insights, ARM, Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, PowerBI.
Business Problem
Colorado’s extreme temperature swings, cold winters, hot summers and an unpredictable spring and fall had Colorado State University buildings wasting energy and money to operate the buildings.
Solution
Adopting a smart building IoT solution, implemented by Zensa, a sophisticated data driven, central dashboard-based architecture built on open systems hardware and Azure, CSU was able to quickly improve their energy utilization across their buildings while minimizing waste.
Outcome
CSU was able to save over 38% in energy costs while significantly improving the efficiencies of their facilities management teams. IoT sensors of different kinds were installed in all buildings and rooms and tightly integrated with HVAC, BMS, IWMS and other facilities management systems. An Azure Data Lake based data solution helped analyze signals from over 3500 sensors millions of data pointes points are used to monitor and manage energy and water usage, resulting in 70% lower carbon emissions than comparable office buildings.
A building energy management system (BMS) efficiently controls all electrical and mechanical systems in the building, including its heating, cooling and ventilation systems, solar thermal hot water systems, and lighting solutions run with LED. All of this was managed by an advanced control system that automatically adjusted every individual room temperature, lighting and other aspects of the building to provide comfortable habitats with appropriate levels of brightness without wasting electricity.
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