This system is directed to a system for the measurement, analysis, and management of the environmental impact according to disparate data collected from facilities to include buildings, enterprises, campuses and other sources. The system can include measurement, analysis and management of use, air quality, energy consumption, environmental impact, emissions, carbon footprint, remediation, and other information in real time. The system can include predictive analytics of air quality and energy holistically and enterprise wide through the use of layered feedback from the building level to other facilities and services.
In modern society, there is an increased desire and need to reduce energy costs for building and campuses, including governmental, commercial, and academic. Energy efficiency, carbon footprint reduction, and improved indoor air quality are aspirational goals across the public and private sectors. The need for a system that can properly manage a building and campus is especially important to today's educational system. The air quality of the classroom environment can be suboptimal which can have an immensely negative impact on the cognitive skills and abilities of pupils. When air quality of a classroom is suboptimal, students cannot concentrate and/or are distracted from the work. Teachers that work in a suboptimal environment do not optimally support learning, and parents are distressed, troubled, or must take leave from work because children have to stay home, which can have significant socioeconomic implications. In one study, classroom air quality was approximated by measuring carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations and in few cases also outdoor air supply rates achieved by controlling the dedicated ventilation systems or by calculating them using the measured CO2 levels (peak concentrations were used or the mass-balance model was fitted). A review of several studies in this area concluded that scores in math and English can be improved from 0.15% to 0.6% (median 0.375%) for each 1 L/s per person increase in classroom ventilation and that the percentage of students scoring satisfactorily or above (passing the tests) can increase by 2.7-2.9% for each 1 L/s per person higher classroom ventilation. Further, it was concluded that absence rates in relation to classroom ventilation show that 100 ppm lower concentration of CO2 will reduce annual absence by 0.016% to 0.2% (median 0.07%) which corresponds to 0.03 to 0.4 days (median 0.14) per pupil per year with 200-day long school year.
The need to be able to properly control air quality and the indoor environment in school classrooms on learning outcomes cannot be stressed enough. A building management system should have the goal of optimizing air quality both internally to the building and in consideration of the environment. To achieve these goals, facility departments can play a significant role by leveraging vast data stores of utility data to enable improved decision-making concerning air quality as well as lower building energy use.
Unfortunately, much attention has been paid to energy use and monitoring, rather than air quality control and management or remediation. In fact, United States Federal Government has recognized the need to reduce the growth in demand for energy, and to conserve non-renewable energy resources without inhibiting beneficial economic growth. In one year, the United States Department of Energy reported that the total federal energy consumption for buildings was about 34% total energy used by the federal government and about 27% of the total cost. Therefore, reducing the energy used by buildings, campuses, and enterprises can have a meaningful impact toward reducing energy consumption leading to energy sustainability.
For air quality and energy use the first potential step is to understand the initial state of the structure and campus. This is advantageous so that any effect on the reduction of energy consumption can be measured. This first step of benchmarking the status allows for meaningful improvement in air quality, carbon emissions and energy consumption. Otherwise, there is not a quantitative method of determining the effect of actions taken to improve these areas.
One example of generating an energy use model is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 9,152,610. This reference discloses a system for generating an energy use model of a building that has a processing circuit for receiving building data that is a first type of building variable and for receiving additional building data correlated to the energy use of the building. However, this reference is limited in that it makes no mention of air quality, environmental impact, remediation, and the like.
United States Patent Application Publication 2017/0123391 includes a multifunctional thermostat that may be configured to measure any of a variety of air quality variables such as oxygen level, carbon dioxide level, carbon monoxide level, allergens, pollutants, smoke, etc.
One attempt to manage energy use is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,429,927 which is directed generally to integration of a building management system with smart grid components and data. This reference states that it may include an automated measurement and validation layer configured to measure energy use or track energy savings based on representations of the inputs stored in memory according to an international performance management and verification protocol. However, this reference does not show that the energy usage of the building can be determined based upon layered feedback so that an analysis of the building with disparate data sources can be made. While this patent discloses a demand response layer that may curtail energy use of the plurality of building subsystems based on the time-of-use pricing information it does not account for energy usage based upon a layered feedback approach.
Another attempt at building management is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 10,747,183 that is directed to a building management system (BMS) including a controller having an adaptive interaction manager and an agent manager. An I/O device is configured to receive an input from a user and communicate the input to the adaptive interaction manager. The agent manager is configured to determine if a software agent can perform the desired action, and to automatically transmit the existing software agent to one or more of the BMS field devices based on the agent manager determining the existing software agent can perform the desired action. The software agent is configured to automatically be installed in a processing circuit of the BMS field device to perform the required action. This reference fails to disclose the ability to use layered feedback for building management. U.S. Pat. No. 10,852,023 discloses a building maintenance system that includes learning but is limited to “leaning” the users voice for input into the system.
One attempt to manage air quality is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 10,509,377 which discloses an air quality monitoring and management system adapted to be mounted between an existing thermostat and a wall in which the thermostat was previously mounted, or directly at the HVAC system. This system requires a HVAC, UV lights source, fan, and air filtration system. It is also limited to a single building without any mention of a layered feedback system.
Of the limitations of these prior attempts at building management, there is not a provision for proper air quality management that holistically uses campus wide data. Nor is there a system that is well suited for data to be updated in real time. Under current systems, the data can take several hours preventing the effective and timely management of air quality, energy, and the like. Actions taken hours after measurements cannot effectively manage the building or campus.
Further, these prior efforts have been limited to individual structures. There is a need for a system that can measure energy and use from different components in different buildings of a campus, use disparate data sources to augment the data available and provide a layered feedback management system to efficiently manage energy use. United States Patent Application Publication 2014/0214222 discloses an energy management system that serves an arbitrary collection of loads via interfacing with related field devices and external information sources and some embodiments respond to events including one or more of pricing events, demand response events, and carbon reduction events by managing the loads and local generation. However, this patent application is limited to having a campus electric power distribution system configured to receive electric power from a utility power source via a utility interconnection that includes a utility revenue meter and to provide an energy manager for managing electrical loads interconnected with the campus' electric power infrastructure. It does not allow for the recording and management of energy campus wide to individual buildings without a campus electric power infrastructure.
One challenge in a system for proper air quality and energy analysis and management is that building utility information technologies are not designed for real-time data processing. For large campus and multitenant buildings that share energy district infrastructure, the ability to provide real-time data processing and resulting reports, action and predictions is limited if not entirely missing because the current energy systems are not designed to be integrated. Without this integration, quality data and modeling cannot be performed, and business decisions are negatively impacted. Such inability can increase the existing problem with poor air quality, especially in older buildings.
Current industry technologies do not factor in the requirements for advanced analytical systems that are needed for the system described herein. Further, current systems do not have dynamic functionality, real time data processing, or tool integration that has the ability to use multiple real-time data streams. It would be advantageous to have a system that allows for the receipt and processing of multiple real-time data from disparate sources and use this data in a layered feedback system for reporting, management, and prediction of building energy systems. It would also be advantageous for a system that can store utility data taken from disparate data sources and place them in an aggregated database which would then allow for web-based dashboards, data mining, and machine learning.
Further, “extract, transform and load” (ETL) frameworks, the process used by traditional systems, processes data in standalone applications and intermediary formats (e.g., within Python for the opensource ETL framework Bonobo or via the Power BI Report Server in the case of Microsoft Power BI). Existing ETL systems do not provide for the ability to manage the data volumes needed, do not provide for real-time analysis from disparate data sources, are not vendor agnostic, do not have the ability to actuate building controls based upon real-time layered feedback nor provide the tools for building and campus management that is required today.
An object of the present system is to provide a layered feedback system using real-time data to manage air quality and energy consumption in a timely manner.
It is another object of the present system to provide a campus wide system that can consider factors that improve as well as negatively affect air quality and energy consumption.
It is another object of the present system to use disparate data sources for the management of air quality and energy consumption.
The above objectives are accomplished by providing a system for actuating a facilities management system comprising: a server having a computer readable medium; a direct data pipe in communication with the server and a first emission source wherein the direct data pipe is configured to receive a first emission information from the first emission source representing a direct emission attributable to a facility; an indirect data pipe in communication with the server and a second emission source wherein the indirect data pipe is configured to receive a second emission information from the second emission source representing an indirect emission from a remote source; a remediation data pipe in communication with the server and a remediation source wherein the remediation data pipe is configured to receive a remediation information from the remediation source; a sensor in communications with the server; a facilities system in communications with the server; and, a set of computer readable instructions stored on the computer readable medium and configured to: receive the first emission information, the second emission information, and the remediation information, calculate an indirect emission value according to the second emission information and a remote source type, calculate an occupancy emission according to the sensor, calculate an enterprise emission value according to the first emission information, the indirect emission value, the occupancy emission and the remediation information, generate a facility action information according to a comparison of the enterprise emission value and a target emission value, and, transmit the facility action information to the facilities system wherein the facilities is configured to implement or reject an action represented by the facility action information.
The computerized system can be directed to controlling environmental conditions related to a structure comprising: a set of internal sensors in communications with an internal controller and associated with a first building configured to collect data; an internal data pipe representing data collected by the set of internal sensors; a set of external sensors in communications with an external controller and associated with a campus configured to collect data; an external data pipe representing data collected by the set of external sensors; a database in communications with the internal controller and the external controller and configured to receive and stores data from the internal data pipe and the external data pipe; and, a server having a set of computer readable instructions configured to normalize the data in the internal data pipes and the external data pipes, analyze the data from the data pipes, display a visualization of the data from the data pipes, determine a course of action according a set of rules associated with the internal data pipe and the external data pipe and transmit an action to the internal controller,
The analysis of the data from the data pipe includes determining the CO2 in each room of the building. The computer readable instructions can be configured to transmit a fan on signal to the internal controller representing that air having a higher CO2 content can be transmitted to an area with a lower CO2 content. The computer readable instructions can be configured to transmit a fan on signal to the internal controller representing that air having a higher CO2 content can be vented external to the building. The analysis of the data from the data pipe includes determining the temperature in each room of the building. The analysis of the data from the data pipe includes determining the occupancy in each room of the building. The set of sensors includes can include a wireless access point. The computer readable instructions can be configured to determine the number of users attached to a wireless access point. The computer readable instructions can be configured to determine occupancy according to the internal data pipe. The computer readable instructions can be configured to transmit a power off signal to the internal controller representing that the power can be turned off for a room anticipated not to be in use. The computer readable instructions can be configured to anticipate that a room will not to be in use according to a campus schedule.
The present system provides for existing data, including data from disparate sources, to be aggregated into a data store that improves utility management and can result in advantageous building and campus management. This system furthers the public institutions and private companies' goals of designing, implementing and operating building systems that further the sustainability goals. The present system provides for the designing, planning, and implementing of carbon reduction goals. The present system processes a real-time indoor air quality index to facilitate the identification of indoor air quality issues including with the use of a layered feedback system. This system also can provide for predictive modeling of energy demand, which also furthers the goals of effective building operations, and can include machine learning to identify future energy usage. This system's predictive features and functions for buildings and campus infrastructure future energy demands can improve energy planning and purchase. This system's holistic approach to campus monitoring and analytics can improve decision making on a building-by-building case. The system includes integrations modules that aggregates data across a heterogeneous sensor and communication network, realizing access to real-time data across multiple applications. This system includes a model for indoor air quality that can identify potential indoor air quality issues and even generate building maintenance tickets for air quality and other actual and predictive issues which can be managed by this system.
The construction designed to carry out the invention will hereinafter be described, together with other features thereof. The invention will be more readily understood from a reading of the following specification and by reference to the accompanying drawings forming a part thereof, wherein an example of the invention is shown and wherein:
With reference to the drawings, the invention will now be described in more detail.
The present system includes a data platform that can integrate existing building, campus, facilities, and other data systems to improve analytic capabilities through the collection, aggregation, and interpretation of this data. The system can integrate with existing facility data systems to improve analytic capabilities through the collection, aggregation, and interpretation of the collected data. Examples of data that can be collected include power, temperature, water, indoor air quality, occupancy, and other building metrics. Further, external data used can include weather information, visitor management, facility functional information, CO2 measurements, CO2 remediation, environmental information, historical data, social activities, maintenance records, regulatory information, occupant demographics, work orders, and maintenance costs.
This system can use a campus utility data store and the internet of things (IoT) technologies to gather data and aggregate the data into a database solution that can be used to support web-based dashboards, data mining, and machine learning. The system can provide a real-time web dashboard displaying (providing visualization) information about electricity, chilled water, steam, CO2, humidity, building occupancy, and building ticket information. The system can provide a holistic view of the campus or enterprise collectively or at the building level which can be used to analyze the overall performance as identify existing or anticipated issues. A user can view the metrics and can see a comparison of building performance displayed using a mapping interface. This system can provide for viewing facility tickets supporting management tasks such as sorting, deleting, and resolving building performance issues.
The system includes a novel data system that supports multiple applications. Data can be received and used in real-time that can exceed the ability to review millions of records (more than 200 million records in one analysis).
The system can include the use of Wireless Access Point (WAP) aggregation to estimate the occupancy by building in discrete intervals. Aggregated data can remove all personal information from the WAP data and only contains counts related to occupancy for individual in the building or on a campus or enterprise. The raw WAP data can be retrieved, aggregated, and deleted after processing has finished. The occupancy measurements can use three unique aggregations to predict occupancy in different intervals that indicate both how many users (including guest users) were in contact with a specific WAP or floor, and how many users used the building during each day.
This system can use monitor building occupancy in a high-resolution manner that previously provided. This system can measure occupancy across multiple spaces and floors and report building occupancy in real-time to dashboards, including web-based dashboards. The data used can be combined with other measures to optimized building systems such as lighting and HVAC systems, both for internal and external conditions.
Further, this system's novelty includes its ability to use a real-world facilities infrastructure that have specific components rather than the traditional approach of casting a wide net in an attempt to maximize data input formats. The present system minimizes the distance between disparate data sources and processes data without imposing an unnecessary load on critical infrastructure.
The present system uses a database server by orchestrating specific computer instructions for efficiently processing data. This system provides for custom aggregations, a management system, APIs for web development (e.g., Python), and an interface system to consume many data sources into multiple (even thousands) of pre-aggregated data streams (pipes).
The present system provides for partitioning of data received from the disparate data sources and can partition the data for subsequent use. Using pipes, data can be placed into a standard format that can include organization by building and building metric. This feature provides for overhead, increases information availability, and easier analysis that current systems thereby substantially improving the management of a building over existing technologies. Further, pipes can be cached intermittently by a caching module, thereby spreading the demand for large data processing requests among many small, lightweight queries. The system can receive data from disparate sources and flow through the integration module so that the data, regardless of its source, can be included in the associated pipe. For example, the system can apply integration module to a data source resulting in an aggregation pipe that can be cached the same manner as any other pipe. The system can use pipes definitions and can connect and update remote sources (such as pipes from Facilities' Oracle or other servers). Pipes may be chained together to create complex aggregations easily and efficiently. Pipes can be used to create layers and these layers can be used for feedback processing to actuate the building controls where the data was originally retrieved or received. The use of pipes allows for pipe actions to be applied to pipes. Pipe actions can share a standard set of arguments and may be triggered via the command-line interface or the administrative module. Access to the data that is delivered by pipes can be provided to third parties using application programming interfaces (API) where the API can be designed for scalability (e.g., high demand uses) which also preserving efficiency through caching pipes on storage media.
Referring to
A controller can include computer readable instructions that can receive data from any number of sensors, equipment, sources and air handlers in the building or campus. The information can be centralized in a data store and used for subsequent analysis and actions. The building can include automated shading system 106 that can be controlled locally or remotely. A room can include door 106 that can include a sensor that can detect an individual entering or exiting the room or building. The door can include an automatic opening and closing assembly with a sensor that can determine the status of the door (e.g., open, closed, opening, closing and the like). The building can include a wireless access point (internal WAP) 108 that can be configured to allow connectivity to a local area network or a wide area network (network). The network can be configured to identify devices connected to the WAP and associate the device with a user. A room can include equipment 110 such as scientific instruments that can include electron microscopes, lasers, centrifuges, refrigerated, heaters, hoods, incubators, spectrophotometers, refractometers, scales, sinks (e.g., water sources), timers, forges, optical sensors, sterilization devices, autoclaves, water baths, lathes, CMC machines, water jets, welders, generators, grinders, saws, engines, and the like. Some of this equipment can have a negative impact on air quality and can be large consumers of energy. These activities can result in direct and indirect emissions received through direct and indirect data pipes. The indirect emissions from purchased electricity, steam, heat, and chilled water can account for nearly 95% of emissions of universities reported in the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association. This system can determine the energy usage of this equipment and approximate the CO2 (and other emissions such as NOx HC, CO and PM) produced.
The computer readable instructions can be configured to transmit a shade down signal to the internal controller representing that the shades 112 for a room. The computer readable instructions can be configured to provide suggested modification to a schedule of use according to occupancy and actual use of the building. The computer readable instructions can be configured to calculate CO2 for a campus according to the internal data pipe, the external data pipe and campus information. The campus information can include vehicle 114 use and emissions. The campus information can include CO2 mitigation sources. The CO2 mitigation sources can include natural areas including trees, shrubs, grass, and any combination shown as 116. The remediation efforts can include man-made systems such as direct aft capture 11 that can be actuated by the system as well as receive data through remediation data pipes. The computer readable instructions can include calculation for the CO2 mitigation source by using methods including dry weight calculations.
The system can also gather data from external sensors that include temperature, humidity (moisture, Rh), air contents (e.g., O2, CO2, and other gases/elements), UV, light, motion events, information network access (e.g., external WAP), information network traffic, weather information, power production data sources, CO2 mitigation objects such as direct air capture equipment, plants and trees 22 and other sources. Mitigation information can also be received, and determinations made from recycling efforts Sensors can be placed in and around CO2 mitigation objects to measure the CO2 at the sensor location and in other locations to assist with measuring mitigation effects. This data and data pipes provide for the system to compare gas levels that both increase undesirable gases as well as the mitigation of undesirable gases. The system can also gather data from one or more vehicles 24 which can be used to determine emissions from direct fossil fuel combustion as well as purchased energy in the case of electric vehicles. These vehicles can be direct sources such as commuting individuals or indirect such as vehicles that physically remove waste from a location.
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A sensor 216 can measure CO2 at its location and in this example can report that the level is 1000 ppm, an acceptable level for an educational building. Sensor 218 can be placed in a classroom and can measure the CO2 levels. In one example, levels can be 1000 ppm in the morning (e.g., prior occupancy) and subsequently, due to the occupancy of the classroom, rise to a value of 1500 ppm, which exceeds the acceptable levels. In one embodiment, the system can determine the emission of a portion of the building, such as the location of sensor 216 and use the occupancy of another location 222, lacking a sensor, and approximate the emission of levels of the area 222. For example, sensor 216 can measure the CO2 through sensor as well as determine the occupancy. The occupancy of the CO2 at location 222 can be approximated by determining the occupancy at location 222 and raising or lower the predictive levels according to the differences in the occupancy between the location of sensor 216 and location 222.
In one embodiment, the system can read unacceptable air quality at sensor 216 and determine that a pattern of rising CO2 in that area reaches unacceptable levels when the occupancy is above a predetermined level such as O1 which can represent the occupancy at a certain time. The system can then generate information that provide suggestions such as modifications to a scheduling system to distribute occupancy over a wider area so that there is less occupancy at any given time in an effort to reduce the emission at certain times and have then remain under acceptable levels. Further, the system can show and predict energy and therefore costs saving were such modifications to the schedule be implemented. For example, when the occupancy is at O1 the energy used can be E1. If O1 is at a time where there is peak energy costs, there is a desire to reduce the amount of energy to off peak times. Therefore, suggesting that O1 is reduced and provide suggested rescheduling of occupancies to O2 can reduce energy use and costs. The system can also receive information concerning fuel types that can be included in the data pipes. For example, the system can determine the make and model of a vehicle and determine its fuel source, or can receive information about the vehicle (e.g., identification of the vehicle and associated fuel type or assign certain fuel types to activities such as water removal). By way of example, the system determine that a waste vehicle is in operation and that the waste removal vehicle is a diesel vehicle. The fuel type can determine the CO2 emissions in one embodiment. In one determination, a diesel engine emits about thirteen percent more by mass per liter of fuel burned than a vehicle fueled with gasoline so that the system can propose using certain vehicles at certain times, changing fuel types and scheduling vehicles so that the overall emissions of the enterprise are reduced. The system can also associate fuel type with the use of electricity. For example, the system can receive information about the fuel type for electricity used during certain times. Nuclear power can be used for off-peak power and can be XX% of the energy that is generated at off-peak power. Because nuclear power uses about 12 and 14 grams of CO2 equivalent per kWh of electricity and coal, produces more than seventy times as much CO2 equivalent per kWh of electricity, the system can display the emission that are being used at electrical use for fuel type and determine the CO2 that results from such energy use. The system can also propose modifications to electrical usage and associate these modifications with fuel type so that overall emission can be reduced. For example, it may be that the peak power is generated using mostly coal while off-peak power is produced with more nuclear. The system can determine the fuel type and display and propose modification for overall reduction in emissions due to the energy usage.
Further, modifications to the scheduling system can result in less strain on the energy system associated with the building, facility, or enterprise. When there are increase emission levels associated with a class schedule the association allows the system to anticipate potentially rising levels in one area of the building with similar configurations including area, disposition near windows and vents, number of occupants, and the like. Therefore, the system can learn from existing sensors data and apply that information to anticipate non-measured areas. The system can also use schedule information, occupancy information, including work order for facilities maintenance, and provide for predictive increase in undesirable emissions that will occur when occupancy and activity increases.
In one embodiment, the system and response to unacceptable levers of emission or air quality, the system can increase air flow to the area containing the second sensor to reduce or dilute CO2. In this embodiment, the system can generate facility action information that can suggest or propose actions to be taken by the facilities system which can affect emission. For example, the system can propose that a modification to the operational setting of the air handler be made so that the next time the class is scheduled to be occupied, the system can increase air flow in anticipation of rising CO2.
The system can also determine that the projected increase in CO2, in this example, raises the overall CO2 for the enterprise by about 500 ppm when the classroom is occupied. Therefore, the system can implement remediation measures to offset the increase in CO2 For example, the system can implement measures that can include reducing the power delivered to a particular power load for some period of time to reduce, implement CO2 capture components such as absorption (e.g., solvents, sorbents, membranes and electrochemical) so that the overall CO2 is not increased. The system can also forecast the remediation efforts needed.
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The system can also receive data from external sources 310 such as CO2 sensors disposed outside the building, vehicle information and other data points that are outside the building. The system can receive data from campus information sources 312 that can include class schedules, visitor information, event information (e.g., sporting events, social events, educational events), activity information, individual traffic, population density, and other information. For example, a sporting event can draw a large population with vehicles, generators and create organic CO2 generations. The system can receive external data 314 that can include weather data, environmental data, community data and the like. Community data can include data such as CO2 levels of the surrounding community which impact the CO2 levels of a campus.
These data sources can be gathered in the data store 304, normalized and pipes 316 create that can deliver the data from these multiple sources to an analytical module 326. The analytic system can include computer readable instructions that can overlay the data from various pipes and be configured to determine the air quality of a building down to the certain room. If the air quality is not optimal (e.g., the CO2 is too high), the system (administration module 318) can be in communications with an air handler controller 320 and send information that actuate the air handle to vent air from the outside into the room or can send a proposed action for the facility system to take to vent air from the room. If the outside air is not desirable to be moved into the building, according to outside data and air analysis, air from one room can be moved to another room to, for example, dilute the CO2 in the target room thereby improving the air quality in the target room. The air handler can also be actuated to move air from floor to floor to improve the air quality. For example, if the CO2 is a target room is 1000 ppm and the CO2 of an adjacent room in 900 ppm, the air between the rooms can be blended, especially if the adjacent room is unoccupied that can result is a more advantageous CO2 in the target room without unnecessarily undermining the air quality of the adjacent room. By using the disparate data sources and organizing them into pipes the initial building can have its building management systems actuated according to information from the various data layers in a feedback system. A portion of the data from the initial building is used to analyze air quality and energy use, combined with dissociate sources, analyzed and action is taken back to the initial building in the layered feedback system.
When receiving data, the system can create a first pipe 306 that can be an aggregation and/or normalization of the data from one or more data sources in a subgroup of a campus of enterprise, for example the building. For example, the occupancy can be determined by receiving data from internal wireless access points, door sensors, proximity sensors and the like. This data can be overlayed with anticipated occupancy for subsequent times during the day and the system control for the building sent information allowing it to adjust the building systems accordingly. For examples, for the last class of the day in a room, floor or building, the system can reduce the power consumption of the building minutes or hours prior to the end of the class so that unnecessary energy is used for air handles and air conditioning when the building in unoccupied.
The first pipes from the data sources can be aggregated and normalized into a second pipe 314. The first pipe and second pipe can include access points (e.g., API) 52 allowing third parties to receive the data in the pipe. The system can provide meaningful visualization 322 and reporting 324 from the system that can be used for decision making and predictive analysis. For example, over time a history of the air quality and the history of the building can be recorded and used to predict high energy usage and detrimental factors to air quality. This information can be used to minimize the detrimental effect of occupancy, building use, and equipment when scheduling future events. When determining class schedules for the future, such as the next semester, the system can provide information and guidance concerning the impact of a schedule on the air quality and energy consumption. Spreading out classes and facility use, and equipment use can flatten the negative affect on the use and the energy consumption. This system can provide the information to assist with this task.
The system can also determine the net effect of air quality considering internal and external factors. The system can receive air quality information (e.g., CO2 levels) from a building and its use, occupancy, and equipment. This information can be used to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions both directly and indirectly through the management of energy consumption associated with the building, The same information and management can be used with a second building so that the net effect of the two buildings on CO2 emissions can be determined. This information can be combined with external air quality factors such as enterprise and campus events (e.g., sporting, and social activities), vehicles use and remediation efforts. For example, the CO2 levels can be managed to reduce the CO2 emission that result from direct and indirect sources associated with the campus below that of remediation efforts. In one embodiment, the system can determine the CO2 absorption of the land (especially plants) around the building and on campus. For example, the following can be used to determine the amount of CO2 that a certain species of tree the weight of the tree is determined.
Where D<11:W=0.25*D2* H (1)
Where D>=11:W=0.15*D2*H (2)
Where W=above-ground weight of the tree in pounds, D=diameter of the trunk in inches and H=height of the tree in feet. It understood that the species of the tree can determine the value of the coefficient C so that the equation can be as follows:
W=C*D
2
*H (3)
A determination of the dry weight of a tree would be 72.5% of Wand CO2 is about 50% of the weight of a tree so that the amount of CO2 that is absorbed per year by the tree can be determined measuring the tree year to year. Receiving this information from the information directed the enterprise or campus, the system can determine and manage the CO2 to net-zero or even negative CO2 emissions.
In one embodiment, the system receives data from the various pipes in real-time and actuates the building controller according to the data received. For example, an occupancy data pipe can provide information that the building has been 75% occupied for certain periods of times during the day. Therefore, the data can show that were the building activities consolidated on one or two floors and a third floor remains empty, efficiency can be achieved in the use of energy and the detrimental impact on air quality.
Referring to
The system can include an analysis of the carbon emissions over a period of time, shown yearly in this example, from the sensor level to the enterprise campus level. The system can display results from computer readable instructions that can calculate effects to air quality and air content such as carbon emissions for a period of time such as the past year. The system can also determine the carbon emissions and contribution to CO2 according to the facilities and utilities associated with a building or campus. For example, the system can determine the amount of carbon that is created or is a result of the creation of use of chilled water, electricity, steam, and water individually or in the aggregate. The system can determine and display the information by scope which can be associated with emission type as discussed by scope below.
Referring to
In this example, a display can illustrate the data, analysis processing and of the system for predictive information and planning information for the reduction and even elimination of carbon emissions (e.g., a zero-carbon footprint plans). The system can determine the carbon usage of the enterprise, reduction in carbon emissions according to remediation events (e.g., installation of solar energy system or other noncarbon-based energy systems) and determine the reduction of the carbon footprint of the enterprise were proposed action taken and show the enterprise emission value as compared to a target emission value. Therefore, the users of the system can determine what actions to take, changes to make and evaluate remedial system, including costs, and compare these to the effect of carbon reduction.
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In one embodiment, the emission sources can be classified according to industry standards. Scope 1 emissions can be those that are direct emissions from users owned and controlled resources. For example, fertilizer used, chemicals used, station fuel and the like. Stationary fuel typically includes combustion sources of solid, liquid, or gaseous fuel and can be used for producing electricity, generating steam, or providing useful heat or energy for industrial, commercial, or institutional use. Stationary fuel can also include emission sources associated with reducing the volume of waste by removing combustible matter. Scope 2 can include emissions released into the atmosphere as a direct result of a set of activities, at a firm level such as chiller water production. It is divided into four categories: stationary combustion (e.g., fuels, heating sources). Scope 3 can include indirect emissions covering all non-direct sources that come from peripheral activities related to the organization. Scope 3 emissions can be those that result from goods and services delivered through an outside provider, as well as waste disposal, investments, product distribution, franchises, leased assets, emission from commuting and employee travel. The system allows for the analysis and display of these difference scopes for ease of analysis and reporting purposes. The system can receive data, analyze, process, display and provide recommendation and actions for facilities system according to the scopes of the emission sources as shown in
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The predictive model of the present system can include determinations from wireless access points which can be used for a determination of occupancy as well as the type of occupant (e.g., guest, student, facility, employee, etc.), schedules, calendars and other data sources that can be enterprise and institutional. The analytics computer readable instructions can include the ability to retrieve and use information from predictive models such as weather models, existing and historical system data from the present system, and historical building data. The system can determine heat gain, internal temperature, moisture, occupancy, and other factors that can result in the sin use of power, heating, cooling and power consumption.
The system can also determine emission for events. For example, an athletic event for a league can have over 80,000 occupants for an athletic game. This can account for a large number of emissions which can be calculated by the system from transportation, attendees, food, cooking, electrical generation (e.g., generators) and the like.
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Data can be fed into a centralized database 1306. The database or dataset can then be retrieved, analyzed, and processed by system 1300. The system can include computer readable instructions that can provide data analysis, digital representations of the enterprise, graphical representations of the data received, aggregate data, provide predictive analysis, provide application data interface for third parties, graphical user interfaces, reports, and transmit the data to local or response systems. The results from the system can be exported or otherwise made available to third parties through an export set of counter readable instructions 1308. Other data sources can include other buildings or facilities 1310 which can have a dataset of database 1314 can be converted or normalized with computer readable instructions 1316, vehicles and transportation systems 1318 which can have a dataset or database 1320 and can be normalized with computer readable instructions 1322. Third-party systems 1324 such as actual or predictive weather systems, energy types, energy usage, and the like can be received by the system and can be normalized with computer readable instructions 1326. The server can be in communication with various sensors 1328 that are disposed in or around a building or enterprise and can be aggregated into a sensor data pipe that can be received by a set of computer readable instructions. The system can also receive information from individual devices that can provide preferences and behavior to occupants and others associated with the building and enterprise.
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The user app can also provide information to the user of the user app concerning the emission that are attributable to the user and the user behavior. For example the user app can include emission and remediation associated with the user for building user, commuting, recycling and the like. The user app can provide information based upon the behavior of the user and can provide recommendations for modifications to behavior and action to reduce emission and even provide credit to the user as a reward that can be exchanged as if flat currency. The areas in which the user app can determine emission and provide recommendations to changes can include the activities and the behavior of the user in relation to the behavior and actions associated with land use (e.g., dorm or apartment), farm and animal feed (e.g., type of food consumed), processing (e.g., food and material used), transportation (e.g., vehicle type, fuel type, distance, activity), retail (e.g., goods and services, building use, shipping, processing, manufacturing), packaging (e.g., type of packing use) and any combination. For example, if the user is presented with information showing the emission associated with beef consumption, the user could reduce or eliminate beef from the user's diet. In this case, the user can be provided credits for the change in behavior.
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It is understood that the above descriptions and illustrations are intended to be illustrative and not restrictive. It is to be understood that changes and variations may be made without departing from the spirit or scope of the following claims. Other embodiments as well as many applications besides the examples provided will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reading the above description. The scope of the invention should, therefore, be determined not with reference to the above description, but should instead be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. The disclosures of all articles and references, including patent applications and publications, are incorporated by reference for all purposes. The omission in the following claims of any aspect of subject matter that is disclosed herein is not a disclaimer of such subject matter, nor should it be regarded that the inventor did not consider such subject matter to be part of the disclosed inventive subject matter.
Those skilled in the art will understand that the screens of the system provided wherein can be produced and created using computer readable instructions. Further those skilled in the art will understand that the information and data that is shown in the screens of the system represent data, data pipes, calculation that are actions on data representing physical events and objects, and that the system can manipulate these physical representations so that the system impacts the physical world in a manner not previously seen in the industry.
This application is a non-provisional patent application and claims priority from U.S. Provisional Application 63/271,172 filed Oct. 24, 2021.
Number | Date | Country | |
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63271172 | Oct 2021 | US |