T.M. Bier completes green project at Packer Collegiate Institute

T.M. Bier & Associates, Inc. has completed a major building automation and control system project on behalf of Packer Collegiate Institute. The project, which included the installation of a fully-customized Andover Building Automation System, occupancy and schedule-based lighting controls, and custom energy control applications, was intended to advance the school's ongoing commitment to a "green facility" and community. For TMBA, an organization that's had an eight-year relationship with Packer Collegiate, the opportunity to provide its latest generation technology and techniques to effect significant environmental, operational and financial benefits was welcomed. "Packer's board of trustees and chief engineer James Dolan have been exceptionally receptive to reducing their energy consumption and overall carbon footprint," said TMBA president Ted Bier. "The school is very active and committed to being green - continually expanding their building management system since the original project began eight years ago." In the latest application developments at Packer Collegiate, TMBA's project engineer collaborated with Dolan to focus on ways to secure even more savings for the years ahead. Each system element had a specific function. The Andover Building Automation System was designed to control and monitor the school's heating, air conditioning, ventilating, lighting controls and system start-up. The system used a "free cooling" concept, using outside air temperature and humidity (enthalpy) sensors to determine whether to bring in outside air or run compressors to cool the facility. In this way, energy is saved by not having to run the compressors if the outside air temperature and humidity are conducive. Regarding the lighting, TMBA effected the integration of the building automation system with third-party lighting controls to achieve centralized scheduling of the school's lighting from one location, ongoing monitoring of the lighting's on/off status, and remote control of the lighting via the Internet. To maximize the building's energy conservation, an "optimum start" of its equipment was designed. Through this approach, equipment starts slowly in a specific sequence to bring the building to the correct temperature settings just prior to the arrival of staff, students, etc. The optimum start technology also relies on the building's systems start-up history to learn the most efficient equipment start-up sequence. Other key elements of TMBA's solution for Packer Collegiate included: an integrated HVAC maintenance monitoring and control, occupancy-based lighting controls for turning on and off of lights based on a local room occupancy switch, and remote monitoring which enables operators to dial into the system and monitor all equipment from outside the facility when necessary. Cumulatively, all of these improvements are contributing both to the school's significantly lower operating costs and building management efficiency since the building now can be easily managed by one person. "Packer's staff and board of directors' goal for the building management system installation was to save energy, protect the environment and improve comfort," continued Bier. "Since 2008, the school has significantly reduced its annual electric consumption from the previous years. With each building management system upgrade, there is a pronounced improvement in their energy reduction." Bier noted that the work TMBA performed at Packer Collegiate could easily be replicated at countless other local area schools operating with constrained budgets. "This is a situation where a modest investment in building managements systems can return measurable savings in energy and operating costs," said Bier.