{mosimage} In 2005, Ellis Hospital, in Schenectady, N.Y., had a big problem with the control system running its boilers. An engineering study found that the boilers were in great shape, but the control system was producing multiple nuisance alarms every day. Plant managers couldn’t ignore the crying-wolf alarms. After all, if the boilers actually stopped making steam, the operating room would shut down.

Clearly, an upgrade was needed. Plant managers reviewed numerous proposals from control vendors and decided to upgrade the existing human-machine interface (HMI) with Siemens tools, while keeping the existing APACS+ controllers, including input/outputs (I/O). The new HMI would filter alarms to reduce or eliminate nuisance alarms. They also discovered that the new HMI could help cut hundreds of thousands of dollars in hospital operating costs, while also ending the annoying alarms.

The engineers took their proposition upstairs. “We made the presentation, explaining that we would save about $250,000 by keeping the APACS+ controllers,” says James Dean, director of facilities management. The team got the go-ahead in 2007. After the upgrade, the phony alarms stopped and people were freed up to do other tasks. “The upgrade allowed us to move around the plant without babysitting it 24/7,” says Dean.

But one of the most significant advantages in the upgrade was the system’s ability to look at plant data. “They made the decision to upgrade without knowing all the features they would have,” says Ken Keiser, migration manager at Siemens Energy & Automation Inc., in Alpharetta, Ga. The data had been available in the past, but now it was easier to access. “They could see the data in different formats. They would look at reports and trends and they used it to save money.”

Specifically, they used the data to track energy use—and misuse. “We are better able to track our energy usage and trend out what time we are brushing up against our peak load,” says Dean. “The data identified the areas where we were getting close to our peak load.” By making changes, Dean was able to take some of the energy costs out of the system. “We were able to slow down some of our heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment to achieve efficiency so we were no longer running 100 percent all the time.”

For years, plant engineers couldn’t care less about energy savings. Energy was cheap, and the bigger concerns were uptime and availability. “One customer had a system for five years before they figured out they could use it to make their blower more efficient,” says Keiser from Siemens. “They had all the data and all the control to turn on blowers and slow down blowers. Once they were on a mission to save money, they looked at their system and found out it could give them everything they needed.”

The rising cost of energy—coupled with a growing interest in environmentally responsible business practices—has led plant managers to take a closer look at managing their facilities for efficiency. Many are finding that they already have the tools in their control systems to cut energy and grab significant savings. In many cases, those tools are in the automation that runs the production equipment. Plant managers are connecting the production control systems to the buildings to manage HVAC equipment.

Energy mantra

Energy conservation has become a new mantra for plant managers. That savings you get from careful energy use goes straight to the bottom line. Investments in conservation give back year after year. Once production is tuned to run efficiently, many control engineers start looking at the potential savings they can get by automating the building itself. “The pricing of electricity is more based on peak periods, so it’s screaming for people to use their building energy more efficiently,” says Ben Orchard, senior engineer for automation vendor Opto 22, in Temecula, Calif. “And it’s not a one-off savings. It continues to save you money no matter how you change or expand.”

The old adage that you can’t control what you can’t measure is important in controlling the cost of running the facility. “With facility automation, there is a lot of focus on reducing energy costs, but you can’t manage what’s not measured,” says Ivan Spronk, product manager for AC Drives and Softstarts at supplier Schneider Electric, in Palatine, Ill. “When you automate things, you can measure them and see where energy is being used. Then you can think about what you can do to reduce that use.”

Many of the tools used for facilities ...