Remote - Summer 2012 - (Page 30)

Applications - Feature Reducing Maintenance and Energy Costs of Substations with Automation Louis-Nicolas Hamer, P.Eng, LEED AP SCL Elements Inc. / CAN2GO Are you capable of remotely monitoring and managing your substation’s heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment? Besides sending a truck out, do you have other means to spot when an HVAC issue arises? Besides the status or temperature of your critical IT equipment, do you have a way to detect what’s right and wrong with your substation’s HVAC equipment? Chances are you answered “no” to one or several of these questions. This bears consequences. First, you’re putting your mission critical IT equipment in harm’s way because you have no oversight of your HVAC system. You can’t do any prevention. You’ll only be aware of HVAC issues after they have caused damage to your critical IT systems. Second, anytime there’s an issue or a scheduled maintenance check-up, you have to rely on truck rolls, which are expensive and time consuming. Third, you’re probably wasting energy and money in each of your locations because of inefficient and unintelligent HVAC control. The challenge for substation operators and maintenance crews is to be able to remotely control and monitor the HVAC equipment of all their sites, whether they have dozens, hundreds or thousands of them. Truck roll really should be the last resort. Systems that allow remote control and monitoring of HVAC in buildings have been available for quite some time, but these systems have always been designed for large commercial buildings, such as skyscrapers, hotels or malls. They were never made for substations, and their fixed costs do not scale down for buildings this small. For each site, the typical architecture of building automation systems (BAS) requires controllers, gateways and dedicated servers or software licenses. When you have hundreds of small sites, the pricing point per location becomes a deterrent. This is why less than 10 percent of small and medium buildings (less than 100,000 square feet) are equipped with a BAS. On the opposite end, about 50 percent of large commercial buildings have a BAS. In that context, substations, which are very small buildings, never really found their match in the BAS world. That’s a shame, because there are hundreds of thousands of substations in North America, millions around the world, that’s a lot of truck rolls. Recently, a Canadian telecom company circumvented this problem by using one solution that didn’t require dedicated servers, gateways or software licenses. They used a CAN2GO fully programmable controller with built-in gateway and web server functionalities. This brought down the traditional fixed costs of building automation systems by 90 peercent per site, which made it sustainable for their substations. The solution is not only giving them remote control and monitoring of their sites, it will also help them reduce their energy expenses. Because adding real intelligence to the HVAC equipment of their substations offers more flexibility and precision in HVAC management, which generates energy efficiency and savings. 30 www.RemoteMagazine.com Free Cooling One powerful example of intelligent HVAC management used to generate energy savings is what is known as free cooling. Instead of using energy to cool and recycle inside air, HVAC systems can take colder outside air to cool the inside for free. This application rests on the controller regulating the fan speed and air flow of the substation’s HVAC equipment according to indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity sensors. This type of cooling can be used in most regions of the US. Even in warmer regions, night time temperatures can often be low enough to be used for cooling. The CAN2GO system can also incorporate additional applications that are of value to tower operators and maintenance personnel. Because the controllers are fully programmable, they can handle a wide variety of inputs and outputs for sensing and actuating. This includes sensors that monitor air filters to prevent dust and debris from getting into substations, sensors that can detect natural hazards such as flooding, security oriented hardware such as door and gate contacts to detect intrusion and motion sensors to detect movement if somebody climbs the fence. These types of sensors can come from a variety of manufacturers. The controller is interoperable with many building automation standards and protocols and can support wired and wireless communication with end-devices. Flood Monitoring, Filters, Access and Motion Sensors The Challenge Remote Control and Management With a CAN2GO in place, connected to both sensors and HVAC equipment, substations become remotely and securely accessible online through a web interface. This remote access offers monitoring, management and programmability. It is a surveillance tool, as well as a configuration and control tool. Email alerts are sent to the appropriate personnel if an unwanted event occurs. Technicians can then look at the status of the system online and troubleshoot from there. Tests and programming changes can be performed to fix issues. This leaves very few instances where a truck roll is actually needed for HVAC, and reduces the occurrences of IT equipment problems due to HVAC failure or malfunction. Solutions for Telecom Substations By generating energy and maintenance savings, the remote management and intelligent control of HVAC in substations is a solution that pays for itself over time. The bundling of control, gateway and web server functionalities into one device lowers the fixed cost of the installation process, which makes the payback period even shorter. Louis-Nicolas Hamer is the vice president of Product Strategy at SCL Elements, Inc. He is the co-founder of the engineering consulting firm Eco2Max and has worked for Nortel and Verint. His expertise covers energy efficiency, greenhouse gas reduction, wireless technologies, and network reliability and security. For more information visit www.can2go.com. The Bottom Line http://www.can2go.com http://www.RemoteMagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Remote - Summer 2012

Remote - Summer 2012
Remote Monitoring in Data Centers Progresses with Emerging DCiM Systems
Multi-Tenant Power Metering and Management
Addressing Cyber Security Vulnerabilities in the Power Grid Infrastructure
Unbreakable SCADA Security: Protecting Hydrocarbon Facilities And Pipeline Networks
Building Networks in Pakistan’s Extreme Environments Puts Remote Management to the Test
In the Flow - Water Treatment & Distribution at Super-Rimiez Plant
SCADA
Networking
Security
Onsite Power
Environmental Monitoring
Industry News
Reducing Maintenance and Energy Costs of Substations with Automation

Remote - Summer 2012