Use of Energy Management and Control Systems for Performance Monitoring of Retrofit Projects: Final Summary Report for USDOE Office of Conservation and Energy, Final Revision, March 1993

Developments in three closely related fields may influence the way EMCSs are used in buildings in the future. First, efforts by researchers are beginning to show that continuous monitoring and analysis of a building's energy use can improve the performance of HVAC retrofits, and help to assure the persistence of the retrofit by constantly checking to see if the retrofit is performing as expected. Second, recent advances in computer technology are now bringing laboratory computing capabilities to the desks of building operators who will eventually inherit today's research in the form of improved building control. Third, common communications protocol standards by ASHRAE and others will eventually allow for easy access to a vast plethora of control and communications systems. However, in order to accomplish this, EMCSs must be tapped for their ability to serve dual functions. First, they must be easy to use, dependable control systems; and second they must also begin to serve as effective sources of long term monitored data. This report provides a summary of efforts by several researchers to investigate whether EMCSs can be used to perform long term remote monitoring of energy use and environmental conditions in buildings, including an assessment of the use of EMCSs to provide data for the Texas LoanSTAR program.Traditionally, Energy Management and Control Systems (EMCSs) have been used to control HVAC, lighting, fire and security systems in buildings. Few EMCSs are used for long term trending and analysis of energy use (i.e., the storage and display of contiguous hourly data over one year)