L ast month, following the receipt of funding from the AusIndustry Green Building Fund, AIRAH announced its intention to produce two manuals seen as critical to the efficient operation of Australia?s existing building stock.

Ecolibrium: Further to that, what are some of the easy things that can be done with controls to have building systems perform better?

Clarke: Getting them to operate as they were intended would be a good start! Time schedules, optimum start and economy cycles operating correctly will have direct impact on building performance. VAV systems with fixed static pressure set-points are generally wasteful of energy.

Mitchell: Other examples include the selection and implementation of the correct control strategies for the application, comprehensive system commissioning by skilled technical resources, the improved configuration of control systems as a true diagnostic and optimisation tool, and correct seasonal building tuning, for 12 months and beyond.

Munasinghe: Keep it simple. There are many specifications with many optimising control algorithms that do not behave in reality as in theory, or the engineer programming the system lacks the knowledge to program the system, which is preventing simple control strategies from performing. Also, if optimising algorithms are implemented, it has to be carefully tested and retuned throughout the lifecycle of the building.

Ecolibrium: Is it as simple as bad controls, bad building?

Clarke: Optimum building performance is a fine balance between maintaining conditions and minimum energy draw. The control system has the tools to create this balance, and is therefore instrumental to the performance.

Mitchell: Just as well-configured controls can be used to extract significant energy efficiency improvements out of building systems, poorly configured and commissioned control systems can be severely detrimental to building performance, including in the areas of occupant comfort, environmental outcomes and operator confidence.

The concept of ?bad controls? is a slight misnomer, as most systems offer similar fundamental technological performance. So it tends to be the extent to which these systems are correctly configured and commissioned that should be regarded as ?good? or ?bad?, which is ultimately correctable.

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