Electrical Engineering Solutions

Pivotal to the fast-accelerating global emphasis on green in non-residential construction, is the Energy Efficiency Education Dashboard (EEED).  The EEED can be seen as the conduit or medium that ensures business intelligence – technology and collected information – is interpreted in the correct way and results in energy efficiency and sustainability.   

Bradley Hemphill, Managing Director of Electrical Engineering Solutions (EES) explains that technology can only make a real impact if it is converted into comprehensible information which will guide the user towards a desired objective or outcome.   

“Technology alone is not good enough,” he stresses.  “What is critical is how the mechanics of technology can be transformed into information that can be understood, interpreted and used by staff, building occupants or the public.” 

Goals or key performance indicators (KPIs) need to be defined upfront.  It is then awareness that will ensure these KPIs are translated into tangible outcomes, such as reduction in energy usage.

As defined by Quality Automation Graphics: “an EEED is a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays a building’s resource use in real-time by ‘talking’ to a building’s automation system”.

It also “serves as an educational tool that provides more information about the green features used throughout the building, photo-realistic graphics, company information and more.”

The dashboard provides real-time information on a building’s energy efficiencies in a fast and easy to understand format.   In addition to showing energy efficiencies, it teaches staff, building occupants or the public about the importance of sustainability. 

The live utility data, such as energy usage, can be shown in real time by integrating the EEED into the building’s control system.  The EEED ‘talks’ to the building automation system (BAS) and displays the building's real-time resource use, making reporting on the metrics of a building’s automation system easier to read and understand. 

In addition to real-time data, this green teaching tool provides information on the building’s energy efficiencies, green features, carbon footprint reduction, company information etc, all in an easy to understand format.

“The holy grail of the dashboard software is software as a solution (SaaS),” Hemphill continues.

SaaS is remotely hosted and managed by a service provider that takes responsibility for ensuring the application is always up-to-date, and integrates this where necessary with third parties, such as electrical meters and municipal administrations.  

“While the use of an EEED may at first seem daunting and difficult to implement, once it has been mastered the rewards are manifold.  Technology will make a real and substantial impact.  It will be converted into clear, intelligible information, and guide the user to achieve those two sought after goals in our industry today – energy efficiency and ongoing sustainability,” Hemphill concludes.