Climate change concerns are accelerating a global trend toward reducing CO2 emissions and energy usage. As companies strive to meet sustainability targets in their buildings, budget and time challenges often interfere with their plans. Retrofits to achieve sustainability goals—for example, replacing windows, boilers, and roofs, or even constructing new facilities—can be costly. So can integrating new technologies such as renewable energy sources and other integral changes that require significant logistical effort.
When it comes to improving indoor air quality; however, solutions don’t require invasive renovation or construction—and building owners can achieve healthier and safer indoor air while also driving energy and sustainability goals.
Building Automation Technology: A Shortcut to Energy Savings
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted organizations around the world to make air quality a priority in their workspaces. As many companies return workers to office spaces, they’re looking for ways to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) by proactively managing ventilation, filtration, pressure, humidity, and temperature levels—without sacrificing comfort or their energy goals.
A leader in the dynamic building space, Honeywell is developing simpler and more accessible solutions to these challenges. “It starts with recognizing that buildings are dynamic entities,” says Manish Sharma, vice president, chief technology and chief product officer of Honeywell Building Technologies. For example, a school building has a theoretical occupant load of 3,000, but there may only be 300 people inside for several hours of the day. Today’s buildings can be smart enough to sense current occupant loads and regulate energy use and air conditioning accordingly. “With a combination of real-time location services, occupancy and occupancy density sensing, and air quality sensors, we are making buildings smarter and more adaptable. Buildings can react to current conditions and make the best decisions to both provide improved air quality and save energy based on a number of factors.”
How it Works
First, sensors measuring CO2, temperature, humidity, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are installed in key zones of a building. Honeywell makes sensors that monitor all those elements at once, further simplifying the installation process—often as easy as mounting the device on a wall or in an HVAC return air duct. Facility managers may choose to install one multi-function sensor in each zone of a building (perhaps a hallway) and temperature sensors in each neighboring office or classroom.
On the control side, building managers can access sensor data through a Healthy Buildings Dashboard, which includes different views for executives and occupants. The dashboard generates maps, revealing where occupants are in the building, and these can be correlated with live data for those occupied areas. When a sensor detects a potential problem—such as excess humidity or a rising level of particulate matter in the air—the system triggers an alert, notifying relevant stakeholders and automatically commanding the HVAC and other systems to work toward correcting the issue. “For example, if there are 60 people in a conference room and the CO2 level is approaching the given limit, the system will begin ventilating that room at a higher rate to improve air quality,” says Sharma. “Later, when the room empties out and there are only a few people left, the ventilation will slow down again to save energy” All of this happens as part of control logic in the background, without the need for human intervention or oversight, and the system evaluates sensor readings every few minutes with the goal of maintaining the right balance.
While ongoing support and services are available, building managers have access to all the sensor data and can run reports as needed to demonstrate both healthy and sustainable spaces. “They don’t need to maintain a relationship with us to see how their building is performing over time,” Sharma says.
Supporting Corporate ESG Goals
With ongoing real-time data the solution supplies, companies can also chart their progress toward Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) goals and targets. Reports help companies make strategic decisions about building operations. For example, a medical office installed the sensors and realized that conditioning its building every Saturday so staff could come in and complete paperwork was costing approximately $600 per hour per person. To reduce energy consumption and costs, the report data helped them decide to keep the building open an extra hour on weekdays instead, resulting in a far lower cost and reduced carbon footprint.
As buildings become smarter, they can respond to dynamic usage and yield significant savings in energy and costs for companies. “Over many years, and especially over the past two, the way we work has changed—and so has the way we occupy buildings,” says Sharma. “Buildings must evolve to catch up, dynamically adapting to the needs and well-being of the people who use them and saving energy in the process.”
Learn more about Honeywell Building Technologies today.