Commercial Automation

The key to smart technology is “Flexibility”. Corporate offices want flexible spaces; Today’s open office space could be tomorrow’s meeting room. Commercial spaces are designed with cubicles and materials that can be easily shifted around. With the increasing speeds and bandwidths available for internet, collaboration of teams across countries is now easy. It is not uncommon in a corporate office such as Intel where a  team of 10 people comprises of 5 people working for 5 different companies on a single project, thus pooling in resources and saving costs.

In that respect, with smart lighting, and smart control of various devices- flexibility is enhanced. Smart Video conferencing within various branches across cities is a necessity today. The personalized use of space that provides right lighting and air conditioning  correspondingly increases the productivity which is the mantra for all corporates. Significantly less energy is used, thus contributing to overall reduction in greenhouse emissions. Cost saving, in terms of running expenses, is also increased with smart technology thus allowing companies to spend more on employees, who are the key to growth.

Now, imagine a big building with more than ten thousand Lighting Fixtures. Lighting ManagementSystem (LMS) is increasingly used for saving energy in “green” buildings as lighting energy consumed, as a percentage of total energy consumed, in a commercial building varies between 25-35%. LMS, which comprises of a software system tying up various components such as occupancy sensors, daylight sensors, manual dimming smartly controlled motorized shades etc. helps combine comfort and energy saving. A significant saving in this energy, contributes to the total energy savings in the building. Measurement of how much energy is saved, and advance warning on life of lamps are the tools used by building utility managers. DALI LED dimming is another increasingly common trend. DALI which stands for “Digital Addressable Lighting Interface” - allows each Lighting fixture to be individually controlled irrespective of load wiring. This gives each user, his own level of comfort lighting thus playing an important part in productivity. Shades in open areas are controlled by software that mimics the path of the sun and thus avoids glare, but at the same time allows useful sunlight to come into the interior space. The sun movement is taken into account and so is the orientation of the building and space to have intelligent shades.

Imagine a system that gives an advance warning to the estate manager on lamp failures for lighting fixtures or, take the example of automatic scheduling of spaces in an available meeting room by automatically detecting presence and turning on various devices in the room or vice versa, where-  if the room is not occupied within minutes of scheduled timing, the room reallocates itself to the next user! Thus, building automation not only enhances user comfort and productivity, but also  improves the ease of serviceability and use of space, coupled by energy efficiency to make building designs informed, responsive and thus, truly sustainable.

-Alok Hada 

Director, Anusha Technovision Pvt. Ltd.