Buildings are becoming complex technical artefacts. Multiple, complementing building services, security, monitoring and energy co-generation systems are being installed in an integrated way in modern buildings. This means, the... [ view full abstract ]
Buildings are becoming complex technical artefacts. Multiple, complementing building services, security, monitoring and energy co-generation systems are being installed in an integrated way in modern buildings. This means, the under-performance or failure of a single component in one system potentially has a serious impact on the overall functionality and performance of the overall, integrated system. Thus, it is essential that the performance of buildings services systems is constantly monitored and commissioned.
In their paper the authors present a so-called Modular Continual Commissioning (MCC) concept, which is based on three major parts, i.e. (i) a Scalable Commissioning Strategy (SCS), (ii) a Performance Evaluation Metrics (PEM), and (iii) a Data Processing Approach (DPA). The authors will demonstrate (i) how the SCS-part is used to allocate the monitoring devices installed in a building and their representation in BIM and Building Management Systems (BMS); (ii) how the PEM-part specifies what Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can be meaningfully implemented for buildings assessment; (iii) how the DPA-part is used to specify the underpinning distributed information models.
Furthermore, in this paper the authors presenting approach to data analytics with use of Data Cubes (DC) following the Data Warehouse (DWH) method. These cubes are specified using selected Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) information objects for the definition of required dimensional hierarchies. The DWH model allows the categorisation of KPIs per (i) building system dimension, (ii) building device dimension, (iii) organisation, (iv) location and (iv) time dimensions. Moreover, the DWH-approach allows any combination of aforementioned categories based on various time intervals. This supports a broad spectrum of analysis scenarios.
The benefit of reusing selected information objects using Building Information Modeling (BIM), i.e. meta models over existing solutions, is the elimination of repetitive work. In the past, descriptive data was acquired multiple times. The concept presented in this paper demonstrates that data extracted from BIM-models can be successfully used to enrich data analysis in a DWH system without need to populate static information in the DWH through other means.
The Modular Continual Commissioning concept presented in this paper was initially developed by the authors during their work in Campus21 (2011-2014) and BaaS, (2012-2015) research projects performed with their colleagues from IRUSE Cork. Furthermore, this concept was tested with data-sets obtained from the real building used as demonstrator in aforementioned projects. The advanced performance evaluation framework for the Modular Continual Commissioning process covering multiple stakeholder perspectives was summarised by the lead author of this paper. This is to trigger a paradigm shift from “energy-centric” performance evaluation to “transparent, multi-oriented” building commissioning service providing comprehensive, pragmatic, and easily-understandable results.
