Aircuity released details about the functionality and power of their software services suite, Aircuity Advisor Services. Advisor enables significant energy savings and superior IEQ and delivers a return on investment of less than two years. Aircuity solutions are recognized as one of the most impactful energy efficiency measures available and Advisor significantly enhances the solution by ensuring these substantial savings are maintained consistently year after year. Advisor's M&V and IEQ management capabilities make it the must-have tool for building owners, facilities, sustainability, and health and safety personnel.
Advisor is comprised of four tools, each of which supplies a perspective on a building's performance. The tools were developed to be used independently or together to provide insight and intelligence about a facility's Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and airside energy consumption.
"We are not simply turning data into pretty pictures; we are giving users information they can immediately put to good use," said vice president of marketing, Chuck McKinney. "Facilities personnel do not have time to sift through data trying to figure out what is going on in their building—we tell them what's changed, when it changed, and where possible, we give them insight into how to address the issue."
The Dashboard tool or data visualization within Advisor consists of a pallet of "Dashblock Analytics" that provide the ability to quickly identify events and trends for any parameter whether measured directly or as an integrated value. Hundreds of datapoints provided by the OptiNet system are analyzed to create a graphical representation of ventilation and IEQ parameters. The information displayed in each dashblock is color coded to quickly identify anomalies in the building's performance. Users can "drag and drop" dashblocks onto their screen to create custom views specific to their job requirements.
Smart Notifications are event driven emails that are sent based on the severity, duration, or frequency of ventilation or IEQ anomalies. Routine events are filtered out so the recipient can focus on real issues throughout the building. Notifications are linked directly to the dashblock illustrating the event graphically for a faster resolution. "Facility managers and EH&S personnel want to know when something significant has changed, and Smart Notifications can be configured precisely to their definition of significant," said McKinney.
Summary Reports are distributed on a weekly or monthly basis and represents a "snapshot" of the building's ventilation and IEQ performance. The report compares the building's current ventilation performance to performance for the previous period. Each report is color coded to easily identify energy or IEQ issues and help prioritize areas needing more focus. "Summary reports are the perfect tool to get a quick feel for how your building is performing," said Eric Desrochers, vice president of engineering and chief technology officer. "With a simple glance at the color coded table facilities personnel can immediately see what areas of the building are operating within expected ranges and which are not."
Once an issue has been identified, users can dive in further to explore it using the Data Graphing and Exporting tool. This comprehensive tool allows users to evaluate all measured monitored and calculated parameters over any period of time. Multiple test areas can be compared and graphs can be saved, copied, printed or exported into excel. "The graphing tool can provide great specificity to EH&S personnel examining a lab protocol issue and it can even be used to help with commissioning or re-commissioning areas of a building," Desrochers said.
"Aircuity solutions provide tremendous energy savings with return on investment ranging from two to five years—even less when utility incentives are applied," said McKinney. "Of course, everyone knows that a building's performance degrades over time, and this degradation can negatively impact energy savings. Advisor is a terrific enhancement to our offering because it gives our customers the ability to know how much energy they are saving at any given time while helping to identify issues that impact their airside energy consumption. Simply put, Advisor gives our customers the ability to consistently maintain their energy savings entitlement and provide a high quality indoor environment for building occupants."