Common Equipment
Don’t use Building → use Common AHU
Ensure points are shared correctly, this may mean the creation of several shared equipment to cover various combinations. E.g. AHU 1 and 2 may share a return duct, but AHU 1, 2, and 3 may share an outside air plenum so two common equipment should be made:
Common AHU 1 and 2 for the return duct points, Common AHU 1 2 and 3 for the outside air points.
Inputs and Outputs Vs Values
Inputs / outputs represent the actual signals going into and out of the controllers. These are essentially the ‘raw’ values and should always be used where possible.
This only applies if there are duplicate points that represent the same metadata have the same value
Important Metadata
Chillers
Critical:
Chilled water entering Temperature
Chilled Water leaving Temperature
Chiller Enable
Chiller Fault
Chiller Status
Condenser Water Entering Temp
Condenser Water Leaving Temp
Evaporator Pressure
Evaporator Pressure setpoint
Condenser Pressure
Condenser Pressure setpoint
Chiller Power Consumption - HLI
Chiller Power - HLI
Chiller Run Amps - HLI
COP - (where available)
Cooling/Thermal Load (Where available)
VSD
Critical:
Operating Frequency
Power
Energy Consumption
If available:
Status
Enable
Power Factor
Torque
Hand / Auto
Current
Speed
Power Meters
Critical:
Power
Energy Consumption
HLI Differences
High Level Interfaces (HLIs), which include VSDs, represent devices that receive low level inputs from the BMS to inform their own internal controls and produce the desired output. These devices will allow certain points to be read and can act either as feedback to the BMS or other monitoring purposes. E.g. BMS will tell a Chiller it wants 6 degree water. The Chiller internal controls will calculate and action how it will achieve this. The HLI will allow the BMS to read specific points to determine if this is what it wants from the system as a whole, such as COP, capacity, etc.
Typically we will want those points on their own devices rather than their parent equipment, following the naming convention for that particular equipment.
Power sub-meters also will have similar naming conventions on a BMS, containing many similar points that we are interested in. e.g. power and energy consumption.
To determine which is which:
Look at how many equipment are referenced on the device (more than 1 indicates a power sub-meter)
Look at points available (e.g. active power or energy consumption indicates one of these three but additional points such as pressures of speeds will rule out power sub-meters)
Device model and vendor
ABB, Danfoss, are VSD manufacturers
Carel, York, Mcquay, Carrier are Chiller manufacturers (Chiller HLIs)
NEMO are PSMs
If in doubt, prioritise PSM over VSD and HLI if only power and energy can be found
BMS Meters
Required to check on BMS to confirm what type of aggregation has been configured (e.g. do they reset at specific intervals like each day, or are they cumulative). Where possible, total cumulative usage is preferred over a usage that resets over a set period of time (daily, monthly etc)
Car Park Ventilation
CO sensor questions - how to zone, how to allocate
Typically CO sensors will go on a common equipment (e.g. Common Car Park Basement 1), with a zone based on the CO sensor number (CO sensor 1 is Level: Basement 1, Zone: 01). Car Park Exhaust and Supply Fans would then have their own equipment, and have the common equipment shared to them as per standard practice. Common equipment should but created as required (e.g. common to the floor, or if further subdivided by east and west etc, additional common equipment should be created).
No BMS Access
Concerns for lack of BMS access and minimising rework:
Which point links with which
Best guess, can rename equipment, level and zone later. Important to get data in within a timely manner where there is an option to rename simple things later.
e.g. If VSDs are not well defined, commission them with their device name and rename the equipment when more information is gathered. This is less advisable for units requiring specific level and zones like VAVs as there is currently no simple way to convert all favourites to a specific level and zone.What to do with duplicates
Consider manually commissioning both for 1 equipment and compare the trends after a significant period. This is also useful for input/output vs valueHow to do parent-child mapping
Base it on FD or other documentation.