Through digital transformation, a large amount of data describing operating conditions and energy consumption in buildings are becoming more and more available. All that data represents a great potential for better understanding and analyzing building operation, and ultimately for improving it. Recent advances in energy management and information systems (EMIS), such as with building automation systems (BAS), advanced energy information systems (EIS), fault detection and diagnostics applications (FDD), and automated system optimization tools (ASO), allow the leveraging of available data to optimize building and system performance, ultimately influencing energy management as a whole. Research in smart buildings and data analytics are also ongoing to further improve building controls and make EMIS tools “smarter.”

While EMIS are great tools, they do not provide direct savings unless actions are taken based on the information they provide. That is where ongoing commissioning (OCx) and monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) comes into play to appropriately plan and integrate the EMIS into a regular standard process and operation and maintenance practices.

This presentation explores the current and future perspectives of the evolving OCx/MBCx, EMIS, and associated data analytics techniques and results and lessons learned from recent demonstration projects.

Sources:
- Proving the Business Case for Building Analytics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, October 2020
- Intelligent Building Energy Management Systems: Landmark Research Project, CABA, 2020