FMs prepare for the energy crisis with cost-effective technologies

With the current energy crisis, keeping costs down whilst maintaining employee satisfaction and well-being is an ever-growing pressure. As we emerge from lockdown and the positive sense of urgency from COP26 (ahead of rising regulation), the industry has been tasked with all sorts of new responsibilities that have not previously been in its wheelhouse – suddenly, we need to be experts in Workplace Experience, Sustainability, remote monitoring and using technology to conduct tasks that have been done manually for decades. Knowing how your building is working and where performance can be improved is crucial. 

It’s no longer just about keeping the lights on (literally), but delivering a full service FM on all the real estate topics of the day, amidst a labour shortage (heightened in the UK due to Brexit), water shortages, labour and energy cost inflation, thereby needing to work with technology to accelerate the change, whilst being assailed by a myriad of new technologies.

Buildings are wasting water and energy

The majority of water safety monitoring tasks are manually intensive, with a heavy compliance reporting requirement, to ensure the safety of occupants in complex buildings. They result in huge amounts of water wastage, tonnes of CO2 emissions from heating water unnecessarily and journeys to remote sites and poor reporting of compliance through handwritten logbooks. According to Infogrid’s data, a manual flushing rota can waste on average over 600 litres per tap, 9 tonnes of CO2 to heat up water per building. Imagine a world where all the manual, low value add tasks were monitored remotely, without the need for time-intensive journeys or energy-consumptive manual actions, and all the reporting was available live, 24/7, without the need for reams of paper stored in folders. 

The rise of AI platforms, IoT Technology and retrofitting

NHS, Lloyds and even Royal Opera House are deploying this technology across all their estates to improve the efficiency of their buildings. Buildings of any age can be retrofitted with an AI smart building platform powered by IoT sensors to make them more efficient. 

Pipe monitoring and L8 Compliance

The route to improving safety is through data-led management of the building’s water system.

As Facilities Managers, knowing what’s going on, anywhere on the system at anytime, means proactively eliminating challenges such as lesser used outlets, especially around vulnerable people in the healthcare system. This also enables proactive improvement of the performance of critical water assets, such as calorifiers or pumps, through active maintenance, or rectifying issues swiftly through reactive alerts. Trusting in 24/7 data greatly improves awareness of a water system and ensures greater compliance and reduced risk. FMs now save more time, and labour costs, as well as energy and reducing CO2 emissions. 

Multiple NHS Trusts have now installed and deployed this technology supplied by Infogrid. The results Infogrid’s Efficient Building System has achieved for the NHS have been amazing. Per 100 sensors install, it delivers costs saving of £21,000 (£73,600 for acute wards), Labor savings of 81% of time saved (91% for remote sites), Water savings: 310,000 litre (1,085,200 for acute wards), Energy savings: 430,000 KwH (1,505,700 for acute wards), CO2 savings: 440,000 Kg (15,551,700 for acute wards). 

FMs reduce cleaning time by 30%

Understanding occupancy alone is a simple data point, but looking at occupancy trends through time can enable a smart cleaning rota, staffed appropriately for peaks and troughs, with the ability to be reactive. Yet, add an understanding of the air quality and the HVAC’s energy consumption, and you can address whether or not you can reduce the HVAC’s energy costs and CO2 emissions, because you have low occupancy and good air quality…and then you can compare the performance of all the buildings in your portfolio to decide which are the least efficient or desirable to work in…and make data-led decisions about property rationalisation.

Infogrid’s AI-powered SaaS platform collects, combines and analyses millions of data points from buildings through best-in-class IoT sensors, delivering real-time intelligence for the commercial real estate and property sector. It focuses on three areas – Healthy Buildings (tenant / occupier experience), Efficient Buildings (maintenance and service) and Sustainable Buildings, but the last is really a green thread that runs through all its solutions, breaking down silos across the industry.

Infogrid’s philosophy is Simple, Affordable, Scalable and Sustainable. In order to have the maximum positive impact on the planet, it aims to be easy and cost-effective to install across whole portfolios, not just flagship HQs.

Looking ahead, the solution’s recommendations are able to steer the facilities manager to making adjustments on the plant in the building which optimise the building’s performance and their time allocation to high value add activities.