Building Automation System Upgrade Project

Solutions

Due to the diverse nature of the various HVAC and building envelope systems across different parts of the plant, GM plant engineers realized that they would need a sophisticated building management system (BMS) to provide effective, real-time control of the energy consumption. After significant research, plant engineers working with the plant’s IT personnel decided on a system that had the ability to integrate all the affected hardware through the plant’s Ethernet.

Implementation took place over the next six months with the following system integrations:

Plant floor lighting, controlled by 13 intelligent lighting panels; this provided the ability to schedule lights by each operating manufacturing unit.
Energy metering, by integrating over 50 individual electric meters; this enables increased vigilance during shutdown periods, and provides for advanced analytics of energy usage.
Plant floor HVAC, comprised of 56 rooftop air houses, totaling 1.8 million CFM; advanced scheduling algorithms, such as optimized start-stop, were enabled.

The cost to implement this project was approximately $460,000 with annual electrical energy savings of $213,000 and utility incentives offering a two-year simple payback.

After the project was implemented, an annual savings assessment was conducted by comparing historical operating data and current operating data, taking into account weather conditions and other anomalies. The result of this analysis indicated annual energy savings of 3,336 MWh, along with some added maintenance savings and additional cost avoidance. Additionally, during the project, a comprehensive assessment of the air houses was performed. This identified many small deficiencies in the equipment and sensors, providing opportunities for repair operations. Heat savings was not included in the original business case, but is estimated, with weather normalization, at an additional $88,000 per year, driving the payback to 1.5 years.

ANNUAL ENERGY USE

ANNUAL ENERGY COST

ANNUAL WATER USE

ANNUAL WATER COST

ANNUAL PLANT ELECTRICITY USE

ANNUAL PLANT ELECTRICITY COST

IN BUILDING ENERGY USE

IN BUILDING ENERGY COST

ACROSS NETWORK USE

ACROSS NETWORK COST

ANNUAL EMISSIONS

USE

COST

Building Automation System Upgrade Project

Related Content