LEVERAGING WEATHER DATA TO IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS

Commercial building owners and facility managers will undoubtedly have to face challenges brought on by weather. Extreme weather conditions – such as blizzards, extreme heat, heavy rainfall- can cause increased operational costs, decreased liquidity, and a building’s value and productivity to decline.

While these volatile weather conditions pose significant physical risks, like the wear and tear of your building, the transitional risks, like the increasing costs and use of energy are to be equally considered. The energy consumption of commercial buildings has been proven to be impacted by weather conditions.

Being the predominant uncontrollable external factor affecting energy consumption in commercial properties, weather presents more difficulties to control its impact on the internal operations of the facility, including its energy efficiency. As a result of weather conditions, cooling energy can increase up to 37%, with peak cooling periods up to 35%. This invariably puts energy consumption among the top expenses in the financial statements of commercial structures.

Maintaining the sustainability of commercial properties becomes increasingly vital to mitigate the consumption of energy. Commercial building’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for 39% of energy used in commercial buildings. Therefore, installing highly efficient HVAC systems can cut utility costs down by 10%-40% and optimize on energy savings. However, simply incorporating energy efficient HVAC systems into commercial buildings is not the cure-all to achieve greater energy savings during extreme weather conditions.

Integrating a smart HVAC system establishes a relationship between aggregated weather data and the building’s HVAC system to enhance energy saving practices. When dealing with extreme weather, these systems use smart technology like artificial intelligence to collect, compile, interpret and draw meaningful conclusions from weather data in real-time. This allows building operations to be proactive, rather than reactive during unpredictable weather changes, earning additional energy and financial savings.

Below are some of the resulting benefits of integrating smart HVAC systems into the daily operations of commercial buildings.

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

The building’s local weather data can be collected to effectively predict varying temperature ranges in the near future, and its impact on the building’s energy consumption. This information will provide building managers with the flexibility to make the necessary preparations to accommodate the building’s needs.

EASIER MAINTENANCE

Interpreting data on the weather enables greater leeway when programming the building’s maintenance on days the weather won’t interfere. This provides the benefit of recognizing high and low operating performance periods so the building’s system can adjust accordingly.

RESPONSE ENHANCEMENT

By incorporating data from the weather into your property’s existing Building Automation System, it can be further programmed to relay automated energy-saving actions. This makes a crucial difference in improving a commercial building’s energy preservation as the energy usage will be dependent on what’s needed at that point in time.

Dealing with weather conditions will always be a substantial challenge for property management. However, with the integration of this technology, commercial buildings can be better prepared in terms of energy savings. Learn more about how iBOS®’s smart HVAC solution’s use of data from weather forecasts can be highly beneficial to increase the building’s energy efficiency and optimize response time.