KNX meets schools sustainability commitment

Edited by the Buildingtalk editorial team Oct 15, 2008

KNX UK systems integrator Andromeda Telematics helped bring together multiple intelligent building controls into a single solution, meeting the specification of an Independent Scool project.

The development of the SciTec building at Oundle School near Peterborough highlights a commitment to sustainability.

It is an inspiring new centre for sciences, art, design and technology that embraces green technology.

It provides both significant energy savings and offers educational benefit to the students who will be able to monitor energy usage.

KNX UK systems integrator Andromeda Telematics helped bring together multiple intelligent building controls into a single solution, meeting the specification of the project.

The decision to use KNX as a common platform to control the building meant that a number of energy savings specified could be realised and also it allowed complete integration to be achieved.

The benefits of KNX were very clear as the project needed reliable and robust control of many features including lighting, underfloor heating, natural ventilation, metering, full HVAC and various other elements, all reporting back to one common visualisation package.

By using KNX, all of the control requirements could be connected together using the same bus system.

This allowed for a simple installation and only one system to set up and commission.

Estates Bursar for Oundle School, Richard Tremellen said: "If you take into account the energy reduction targets it soon becomes clear that we have to be able to control the services we use in the most efficient manner".

"The KNX solution has given us the control we need, allowing us to achieve these savings and at the same time monitor exactly what is happening in the building." Another benefit of KNX technology was the control of the main HVAC plant where boiler sequence control, weather compensation and pump control all help the school to meet their energy efficiency targets.

The newly installed solar panels on the roof of the building are also playing an important role with their ability to pre-heat domestic hot water in the winter months, and fully heat it in the summer.

There is a tendency for lights to be left on when the classroom is empty but by focusing the system around DALI, constant light control presence detectors maintain a set lux level with natural daylight being used where possible to allow dimming of luminaires and thus maximising energy savings.

For areas without DALI control, intelligent switching has been used with presence detectors.

Monitoring and metering plays a very important role where there are efficiency targets to meet and in this case smart metering was used throughout the site to measure the loads for water, gas and electricity.

The metering values are sent over the KNX bus system and the integrated head-end visualisation package allows the maintenance team to monitor and control the system via a web tablet PC.