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Data is the backbone of
EnergyWitness™. Data collection and organization of the data is a process
of knowing what data to get, how to get it, and how to present
it—both from an internal data management viewpoint and from an
end-user's perspective. IDS Configuration Services deliver all of
that. We gather interval data from all energy sources (purchased and
generated utilities) and energy consumers (buildings,
control systems, meters, etc.), and populate our
database to prepare EnergyWitness monitoring, diagnostic, continuous
commissioning, and invoicing applications.
What Data do You Need?
The simple answer—all of it. Not one or two percent. Not half.
Every control point, monitoring point, automated meter, manually
read meter, utility feed, weather data, and space planning data if
available should be captured. But that's just the simple
answer—the complete answer gets a little more complicated.
A more precise list of what data you need comes from
understanding what you are going to do with it. This is where the
IDS configuration team, unequalled in understanding the use of interval data to manage energy systems, adds immense
value by knowing how the data will be used later for diagnostics,
monitoring, and driving cost savings. So, in addition to getting all
of the data points, as part of the Data Configuration Service we will
determine and collect where you need instantaneous data, averages
over the 15 minute interval, and totalized readings. Having the
right type of data available is very important down the road for
analyzing operations and devising cost-saving strategies, and also
for speed of data retrieval when monitoring and performing
diagnostics.
How is Data Collected?
As part of the installation and setup of EnergyWitness, IDS
installs an OPC server, a Microsoft SQL Server database, and
our EWDataCollector and
EWDataWarehouse modules. These are the core
technology components for gathering the interval data. Depending on
the building automation system and equipment manufactures, some data
is available directly from their own database. We may ask your
energy engineers to turn on a data output component in your BAS.
However, it's important to know that our approach to capturing
interval data does not affect of your control system performance the
way integrated trend logs often do.
We can collect data from just about any BAS, meter, or utility
feed (purchased and generated) you may have. We have experience with Johnson Controls,
Siemens, Honeywell, Carrier, Andover Controls, and Novar
Controls to name a few.
The Tab Selector allows you to select which data trees (configured by
IDS services or you can learn to configure data yourself) are available.
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Data Organization ... the Key to Usefulness
Organizing the data in a way that's useful to
the end-users—your facilities managers, energy and control
engineers, and technicians—is critically important to enable them
to derive specific actionable information and then verify the
operational improvements and cost savings. With the data organized properly, you
can monitor your entire campus or
facility in about 20 minutes a day.
EWViewer includes a powerful data
organization component, the Data Tree.
As part of IDS Data Configuration Services, we will work with you to
define the data organization that makes the most sense, combining
our expertise with your management style and needs, and build the
appropriate Data Tree(s).
Data Tree showing hierarchy of trend charts for chiller system.
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The Data Tree has two major components. The first is a
configurable set of data tabs. These tabs allow you to group related
interval data trends together. For example, we can configure all the
components of your chillers in one tab, group your cooling tower in
another, air handling systems, Delta T reports, etc. You may also
want data organized by zone or building—additional tabs can be
configured for a space-oriented view that includes all energy use.
The second major component are the trees themselves. These are
hierarchical views if the interval data trends that pertain to each
tab. Configuring these trees properly, so that each branch consists
of the optimal set of trend lines, provides a series of trend charts
that can by cycled through by your energy and control engineers to
efficiently monitor your campus with greater accuracy and
thoroughness then has ever been done before. The tabs and trees can
be user-specific, so each member of your staff can have their own
view of the data.
Data Configuration Summary
In short, IDS Data Configuration Services includes:
- Data Collection: We'll configure the data collection software to
get the right data, in the right format, to drive the calculations,
monitoring, diagnostics, and energy conservation plans you need.
- Data Management: We'll populate and organize the underlying
database to provide nearly instant response to view trend charts.
- Data Organization: We'll configure the interval data views to
have the best groupings, proper hierarchy, and optimal selection of
trend lines in each predefined chart to allow fast, methodical
monitoring of your entire campus/facility.
Contact Us
For more information on IDS Data Configuration Services, please contact
us by phone at 617-744-1091 or by e-mail at
info@intdatsys.com.
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