At the 2022 AHR Expo, exhibitor J2 Innovations will be asking HVAC manufacturers to seize the opportunity to make a significant impact on buildings’ energy profiles.
Currently, HVAC accounts for 45% of total building energy consumption, with 65% of this in the plant room alone1, so optimizing and controlling the plant room holistically provides outstanding savings.
Controlling the supply and demand
J2 believes that manufacturers should go far beyond optimizing their equipment and expand to control the entire plant room as well as the supply and demand of other building systems.
“With HVAC being the largest consumer of energy within a building, it makes sense that manufacturers of HVAC equipment can lead from the top down to reduce energy across a building,” says Alex Rohweder, CEO, J2 Innovations.
Absence of building automation system
There is no reason why HVAC manufacturers cannot extend into managing 3rd party room controls"
"With approximately 80% of all commercial buildings without a building automation system, there is huge scope for HVAC manufacturers to not only manage and optimize their equipment but ancillary equipment too - either managing the plant room or the whole building."
"For example, there is no reason why HVAC manufacturers cannot extend into managing 3rd party room controls, metering or even lighting, providing the market with a much easier way to acquire integrated BMS type functionality, without the cost of custom engineering,” Rohweder continues.
FIN Framework platform
Leveraging J2’s open edge software platform, FIN Framework (FIN), is one way that manufacturers can maximize their plant equipment and start looking beyond the plant room. FIN is already utilized amongst others by Italian HVAC manufacturer Clivet SpA (a Midea Group company) in their highly specialized plant room control system, Intelliplant.
As well as providing energy savings, FIN was chosen as it provided Clivet with the freedom to continuously improve solutions throughout their lifetime because it is open software that allows to continuously provision new apps to the system, along the entire lifecycle.
plug&play set up
FIN Framework's applications include wizards for a plug&play set up so that installers can easily integrate it
Although J2’s software is ideal for OEMs to integrate into their products, those that will install the final product are not forgotten. The HVAC installer community should also be supported by providing technology that is easy-to-use and requires little specialist skill.
For example, FIN Framework has applications that include wizards for a plug&play set up so that installers can easily integrate a FIN-based solution to successfully manage and optimize a building with little fuss or cost.
holistic building management solution
“This year, we’re throwing down the gauntlet to HVAC manufacturers – they provide the equipment, and we will provide the software solution to help them. We’ve packaged up some key apps into suites so that manufacturers can customize and extend to other building applications for a holistic building management solution that comes with the plant room, and not separate from it…”
Rohweder concludes, “It’s clear that climate change, tighter legislation, increasing energy costs, and the demand for sophisticated automation is putting pressure on the entire industry, but together with J2’s software, we can work to make buildings more sustainable. The team and I will be at AHR and would welcome a discussion on how we can help you make an impact.”