Contractors take control

Malcolm Gribble of Trend Control Systems looks at the inexorable rise of the specialist controls contractor.

Twenty years ago almost all building management systems installed in the UK were supplied and engineered by manufacturers. Today, it is specialist controls contractors – also commonly known as value added resellers (VARs) or systems integrators (SIs) – that are responsible for the majority of installations.

Figures from the Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA) show that in 2007/8 controls contractors were responsible for system sales worth £250million, roughly double the total attributable to manufacturers (£127million). Back in 2000 the volume of business they did was more or less equivalent.

Significantly, manufacturers have been deliberately moving away from direct system sales. Most have followed the lead set by Trend Control Systems in the early nineteen-nineties, when it became the first to embrace the third-party route to market.

Greater choice
The growth of the controls contractor sector has benefited end users in several ways. Most obviously it has opened up the BMS market to greater competition, which has inevitably led to keener pricing. Whereas once there was just one source of supply – the manufacturer – now there are many. This continues to be an advantage when end users are looking to develop or expand their systems, as they are no longer locked in with a single supplier.

Moreover, VARs tend to enjoy a competitive advantage over manufacturers, in part because they handle more aspects of a project themselves (for instance, control panels – which represent a fairly large slice of total system costs). Also, almost all are independent businesses and as such they are usually better able to tailor systems to meet specific customer demands. The majority are approved suppliers of more than one manufacturer’s system.

Driven partly by the recent boom in BMS installation work, the number of VARs operating in the UK has increased to over 350 – an all-time high (whereas the number of manufacturers of intelligent building controls is less than 20). There has also been a tendency for these companies to get bigger, enabling them to handle larger and more complex projects – sometimes involving the integration of BMS and other building systems. Interestingly, several have been acquired by larger organisations wishing to gain a foothold in the building controls industry.

Though the largest VARs have turnovers ranging from £5 to £10 million p.a, the sector still has its fair share of small businesses, many with just a few employees. But, whatever their size, they all justifiably demand a high level of support from the manufacturers whose products they supply.

Not a commodity
In the world of BMS, the VAR model is no conventional producer/distributor arrangement. The product involved is not a simple commodity and seems no closer to becoming one. Building controls are hi-tech and evolving, so it is vital that manufacturers provide their VARs with regular, high-quality training and keep them fully apprised of the latest developments. In this connection it helps enormously if a new system is ‘backward compatible’ with older generations of equipment. Manufacturers also need to make their system engineering tools as easy to use as possible – as this translates into project cost and time savings and helps to ensure that the BMS is set up to control the building services plant in an energy efficient manner.

Not surprisingly, VARs place a particularly high value on product reliability, build quality and value for money. Given the tight project timescales that controls contractors usually have to work to, the ability to deliver product on time is also judged highly important, which underlines the need for a manufacturing operation geared to rapid order turnaround.

What VARs do not want is to have to compete for business with the manufacturers who supply them – which is still a common occurrence. It is really impossible for a manufacturer to be fully committed to the VAR model while still energetically pursuing the direct sales route.

The standard of work done by VARs is generally very high. However, end users are well advised to only place contracts with those that are manufacturer-accredited, since this provides a level of assurance regarding their expertise and professionalism. This applies not only to BMS installation projects, but also to system maintenance work – where again it is VARs that are now the principal providers. In 2008, they did nearly £100 million of service and maintenance business, the figure for manufacturers being just over £50 million. Yet up until 2005, their share of this market had always been less than that of manufacturers.

In recent years a greater range of service and support offerings have become available, and at the same time some traditional maintenance routines that are perceived to have little value have been withdrawn. While scheduled system checks involving regular site visits are still essential, they can now be augmented by automatic monitoring and remote response services. Some are specifically designed to identify sources of energy waste and increase the energy savings made by the BMS. However, the more sophisticated services are currently offered by very few manufacturers and are as yet not available directly from VARs.

Continued presence
Though there is every possibility that VARs will continue to grow their share of BMS supply and maintenance work, it is highly unlikely that manufacturers will withdraw from these markets entirely. There will still be a requirement for direct supply on the really large projects and there will always be some end-users – particularly first-time system purchasers – who will want to work directly with the manufacturer. Also, a few of the bigger manufacturers have invested heavily in developing their post-installation services and are committed to keep offering them – possibly in partnership with their VARs.

In the rest of Europe, controls contractors do not enjoy the same dominance as in the UK. However, as the benefits they offer have become better appreciated their market share has increased here too. This is now estimated to be 25% across the principal EU markets and is set to grow further.

A fast and painless route to cutting carbon emissions

Any organisation seeking to reduce its carbon emissions should first take a closer look at its building energy management system (BEMS), says Sean Brook, Energy & Support Solutions Manager at Trend Control Systems Ltd.

Owners and tenants of non-domestic buildings are under mounting pressure to cut their energy usage and carbon emissions. They are faced by the prospect of higher utility prices and ever more stringent legislation, not to mention public and stakeholder demands that they show high standards of corporate social responsibility. At the same time they are being constantly bombarded with information about products that will reduce their energy consumption.

So what should be the first priority for hard-pressed energy and facilities managers? The logical answer is that they should focus on those areas where large energy savings can be made quickly and easily. This will often mean looking no further than their building energy management system.

The principal role of a BEMS is to regulate and monitor heating, ventilation and air conditioning – and often lighting too. It typically controls 60-80% of a building’s energy usage. By applying a range of control and monitoring routines – both simple and sophisticated – it is capable of operating the building services in strict accordance with demand, thereby avoiding unnecessary use of energy. But for various reasons many BEMS are out of synch with their environment and are thus not working to their full potential.

Where does waste occur?
In new buildings loss of energy performance can begin almost immediately. The main reason for this is that BEMS are generally commissioned prior to occupation. A further contributory factor is that commissioning is often the final act before the building is handed over and the BEMS supplier may thus be working to an exceptionally tight time schedule, some might say impossibly tight.

When people move into a building they bring with them a variety of heat-emitting equipment, such as photocopiers and vending machines – and all too frequently these are positioned close to system temperature sensors. In consequence the BEMS increases the flow of chilled air to the area around the equipment, which then leads to overcooling of the surrounding space, resulting in a classic ‘heating fighting cooling’ situation. So within days or even hours of the building opening for business its energy performance is in decline.

As time goes by other factors can cause performance to deteriorate further. For instance, the building occupation times entered into the BEMS may no longer reflect reality. These may have been extended to allow for a longer working day or weekend shifts, but then not readjusted when the normal working pattern is resumed. This far from uncommon occurrence results in the building services being operated at full capacity at times when the premises are empty, which is hugely wasteful of energy.

In addition, many buildings undergo regular repartitioning, usually without any thought for how this will affect control of space temperature. What may well happen is that some areas become overheated and people compensate by opening windows, while other spaces are overcooled – a common remedy for which is to use even more energy by plugging in fan heaters. A similar effect can be produced by the simple act of covering over sensors with posters and wall planners.

Large and immediate savings
The examples described above illustrate how easily energy efficient control can be lost. Fortunately, such problems are just as easily rectified, for little or no cost. However, it is first necessary to carry out a thorough review of the situation in the building and assess what needs to be done to optimise control by the BEMS, a job that is best left to an energy control specialist. Trend, which offers an energy audit service to users of its system, has carried out many such surveys. It has found that energy consumption can be cut by as much as 25% as a result of corrective actions taken during the review visit. The monetary savings that result are typically several times greater than the actual cost of the service.

A survey might also identify how further savings could be made by carrying out more significant changes or additions to the BEMS – like fitting variable speed drives on air handling plant. However, any proposal for additional work needs to be presented as a fully costed business case, with predicted savings and payback on investment.

If energy savings are to be maintained then it is necessary to closely monitor consumption, which will highlight any tendency for energy performance to once again decline. Tools such as Trend’s iMAT on-line monitoring and targeting package offer a one way of achieving this. It is able to continually compare actual and expected usage (taking into account other data such as temperature conditions) and automatically generates a report when the difference is too great.

Maintaining good performance
If necessary, other means can be deployed to quickly diagnose the exact cause of energy overuse. For this purpose Trend recently introduced its IQEYE web-based BEMS performance tool. This is able to check the functioning of the system – including its control loops and sensors – and can also highlight events such as valves becoming stuck open, controls being manually overridden and other potential sources of energy waste.

Used in tandem, iMAT and IQEYE can allow a problem to be identified, diagnosed and rectified in a matter of hours and thus avoid months or even years of energy over-consumption. The earlier example of a photocopier sited beneath a sensor would quickly come to light when using the two tools in concert. While iMAT would spot the excessive energy use, IQEYE would show that a control loop was failing to reach its setpoint – suggesting a fault with the sensor or something else affecting it. A visual inspection would immediately reveal the cause.

Energy and facilities managers are now offered everything they need to get the performance of their BEMS back on track – and then keep it there. Importantly they are able to achieve both a quick win on savings and a long-term reduction in their buildings’ energy consumption and carbon footprint.  Other approaches to cutting carbon emissions should not of course be disregarded, but few if any are likely to have such an immediate effect or make a bigger impact (the payback period for a wind turbine could be well over 50 years). And it is not just older sites and BEMS that will benefit from an energy audit. Since performance decay tends to be most pronounced early on in the life of a building, it is almost never to soon to consider the value of system optimisation.

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