Energy Efficiency

Case Study: Remote Energy Management

These days, wasteful energy consumption is the bane of all companies . . . especially those that deal primarily with energy management. The CEO of a Swedish energy management company, recognizing the need for a streamlined solution to reducing energy consumption, set out with straightforward goals for optimizing his industrial facility: “Room temperature should be adjusted to a suitable and verified living climate, and what is not needed should be shut off.” Building automation was the clear solution, but achieving that end goal meant overcoming numerous challenges. BFM AB, a leading innovative wireless solutions provider, was brought in to implement an energy-saving application that would enable remote monitoring and control of wireless HVAC elements from a central location.

In order to circumvent complications with the facility’s concrete walls, BFM envisioned a low-power, battery-operated module solution, including a self-healing multi-hop wireless mesh network capable of rerouting a signal if line-of-sight was blocked. ZigBee, a global standard for the wireless sensor networking based on IEEE 802.15.4, met all of BFM’s requirements. In particular, MeshNetics’ ZigBit modules topped the list of ZigBee module vendors -- boasting over 1,000m of unamplified line-of-sight range, 6 µA of current consumption in sleep mode, and only half square inch of footprint. BFM implemented ZigBit module-based control and sensor devices based on ZigBee ultra-low-power wireless networking technology with an embedded mesh networking stack software – forming a self-organizing, self-healing sensor and control network. This embedded wireless communications approach achieved a high-quality, cost-effective system that’s applicable to virtually any commercial building or industrial facility, all while reducing start-up and commissioning costs to nearly nothing. This wireless energy management system was named “Link2Web.”

Leveraging in-depth, real-time temperature and energy usage data, the Link2Web ZigBee wireless sensor network optimized efficiency in the energy management company facility, achieving a dramatic improvement in performance that translated to significant bottom-line gains. For a total installation cost of $45,000 USD, the Link2Web energy management system returned annual energy savings in the amount of $34,974 – nearly paying off itself over the course of a single year.

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