SERDP and ESTCP have launched a webinar series to promote the transfer of innovative, cost-effective and sustainable solutions developed through projects funded in five program areas. The webinar series targets Department of Defense and Department of Energy practitioners, the regulatory community and environmental researchers with the goal of providing cutting edge and practical information that is easily accessible at no cost.

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Webinar #75 (07/12/2018)

Innovative Low-Cost Building Automation Sensors and Controls

Mr. Julian Lamb, Paragon Robotics

Dr. Michael Brambley, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

July 12, 2018

12:00 PM ET (9:00 AM PT)

Presentation Slides

Abstracts

“Wireless Decentralized Energy Management and Control” by Mr. Julian Lamb

This presentation will review the results and lessons learned from ESTCP project EW-201410, the first demonstration of a wireless building management system (BMS) at a DoD installation. An overview of the Energy Saving Performance Contract (ESPC) process will be described. Wireless BMS technology has been designed to work closely with ESPCs to greatly improve the return on investment for common types of energy savings projects. Installing advanced BMS systems in DoD’s small building sector is expected to provide 8% or more energy savings when replacing an optimized non-BMS control system, and more than 30% energy savings when replacing building controls that lack an off-hour energy reduction scheme. Installing BMSs into a greater portion of small DoD buildings will provide other benefits such as improved maintenance response and energy accountability.

“Demonstration of a Building Automation System Embedded Performance Degradation Detector Using Virtual Water/Air Flow Meters” by Dr. Michael Brambley

Physical meter installations require long, straight and unobstructed pipes or ducts. Space limitations plus expensive installation costs are the most dominant factors discouraging physical flow meter installations in existing buildings, which account for $4 billion of DoD energy costs annually. The lack of metering capacities makes building commissioning and energy performance improvement difficult, requiring that energy professionals perform onsite measurements using portable meters to identify many efficiency improvement measures. Those measurements are usually labor-intensive and thus, costly. The proposed Building Automation System (BAS) embedded performance degradation detector (PDD) improves upon the typical 4-phased open-loop commissioning process by deploying a cyclical, continuous, closed-loop process using low cost and reliable virtual flow meter technologies. This includes virtual pump water flow meters for hot and chilled water systems, virtual fan airflow meters for air handling units (AHUs), and valve water-flow meters for AHU coils, which enable real-time continuous performance measurement and verification for major building systems. 

Speaker Biographies

Mr. Julian Lamb is the founder and president of Paragon Robotics, a manufacturer and supplier of next-generation data acquisition and control products for the energy industry, including wireless data loggers, monitoring and control systems. These sensors are used throughout the United States, Canada and Europe for applications such as energy efficiency auditing, building performance, air quality studies, and warehouse, storage and greenhouse environmental monitoring. Mr. Lamb has spent the last two decades managing multi-disciplinary engineering efforts ranging from microelectronic design, embedded software, network engineering, and enterprise software development. He now focuses on leading projects related to energy efficiency, resilience and cybersecurity of facility control systems. Mr. Lamb earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from North Carolina State University.

Dr. Michael Brambley is a Staff Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He has over 30 years of academic and research experience related to energy technologies and policy, focusing on advancements in control, automated fault detection and diagnostics, and self-healing systems. Dr. Brambley has served in a variety of roles including principal investigator and research contributor, project and program manager, technical group leader, department chief scientist, and leader of several initiatives. Most of his work over the last 25 years has focused on improving the actual operating efficiency of buildings. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree and doctoral degree in engineering sciences from the University of California at San Diego.

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