1 (800) 971-1124
Error
  • JLIB_APPLICATION_ERROR_COMPONENT_NOT_LOADING
  • JLIB_APPLICATION_ERROR_COMPONENT_NOT_LOADING

AEI Soft Start® BAS

A comprehensive BAS review and tune-up.

An AEI Soft Start BAS is a fast and efficient way to address a wide range of questions such as: Are there are obvious reasons for comfort complaints? Are control sequences being overridden? Are occupied set points reasonable? Do unoccupied set points meet ASHRAE 90.1 recommendations?

Our Certified Energy Managers will review the operation of your BAS by analyzing the data presented on the BAS screens and provide specific feedback on all systems controlled by the BAS. Our analysis for your specific building will take into account many variables such as the type of control strategies utilized and the nature of the installed instrumentation. All of the items listed below may not be applicable for your facility, but they are shown here to give you a sense of the items that can be evaluated with a BAS Soft Start:

  • Equipment not operating on the desired schedules
  • Sensors out of calibration (pressure, temperature, CO2, etc.)
  • Excessive amount of outside air introduced at air handlers
  • Simultaneous heating and cooling
  • Equipment operating in bypass
  • Equipment not meeting set points
  • Heat recovery equipment not operating properly
  • Economizers not operating properly
  • Leaking hot water valves
  • Equipment not staged on/off properly (boilers, chillers, cooling towers, etc.)
  • Equipment not operating on the desired lead/lag sequences
  • Central plants operating with an undesirable temperature differential
  • Reset schedules not utilized (hot water, chilled water, discharge air temp, etc.)
  • Control strategies not optimized
  • BAS graphics not presenting basic information required to optimize building

What's the Process?

Sometimes a site visit is appropriate, but with VPN access to your BAS, we perform a visual evaluation of all relevant BAS screens on various days under different operating conditions. An updated set of mechanical drawings, control drawings and sequences of operation will allow the CEM to provide the most valuable feedback, but if not available, we can utilize the BAS graphics. The graphics do not have to be pretty; they just need to present the relevant data. Where possible, we'll extract the history data so that we can examine the off-peak hours and seasonal changes that can't easily be examined at the front-end screen of your BAS software.

The magic happens when we are able to load your BAS data into our database and tag sensors according to their equipment and functional roles. From there, a first automated pass shows us all the outliers by sensor type and equipment, by times of day and days of the week. We'll correlate paired sensors to see that feedbacks match commands. Our flexible visualizations and report designer will then show you what we see in a clear and intuitive view of all the performance characteristics of your equipment. We'll port the data for some of your larger air handlers, chillers and boilers into an AEI Flatcube interactive visualization that lets you explore the simultaneous values of dozens of sensors in a system, with filtering capability for time of day, day of week, or any combination of sensor value ranges.

What's the Result?

The AEI Soft Start BAS process optimizes the deployment of your resources to maximize the comfort, health and efficiency of your buildings with a set of clear reports and analyses that point to the specific issues reported by the BAS. Schedules, set points, sensor calibrations, and control sequences are all evaluated. If you're building is already tuned, then you'll at least be left with a documented set of baseline reports that can be used as a reference work for a future review.

If there are issues, we can take the AEI Next Step consisting of a deeper dive into building control strategies or help you move forward with cost-effective upgrades to certain parts of the BAS system. All of what we do is bumping up against the next logical steps to provide you with the foundation for:

  • ASHRAE New Building Commissioning (Cx)
  • ASHRAE Existing Building Commissioning (EBCx)
  • ASHRAE Existing Building Re-Commissioning (OCx)
  • Master Energy Planning
  • LEED 4.0 Metering, Commissioning and Verification

Pricing

  • AEI Soft Start BAS is $2,750 per building. Delivery of all reporting and analytics to a secure web portal. Multiple building discounts apply.
Operator Training

The Operator Training Option consists of six 2-hour webinars or on-site sessions led by an AEI AEE Certified Energy Manager. The webinars use the existing graphics, reports and trends to help personnel gain insight into potential operational improvements. This option includes a copy of Phil Zito's book titled "Building Automation Systems A to Z". Webinar time can be utilized to answer questions regarding Phil's book or specific questions regarding existing building operation.

  • $1,500 for six 2-hour webinars scheduled when mutually convenient.

 

New AEI Energy Maps Just Released

We've just released public versions of our AEI Energy Maps for Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans and others built in partnership with the U.S. DOE Better Communities Alliance.

Visit the AEI Energy Maps page

AEI Featured on Energy Matters 2U Podcast

AEI was recently featured along with Leidos on an Energy Matters 2U Podcast. During the 20 minute conversation, Carl Popolo of AEI and Ron Gillooly, Leidos' Industrial Energy Program Director, discussed how a building's energy data profile combines with a physical audit to target efficiency measures that have specific and verifiable results.

Listen to the Podcast

AEI To Provide Energy Maps to U.S. DOE Better Communities Alliance

AEI is pleased to have been selected as an Affiliate to the U.S. Department of Energy Better Communities® Alliance. AEI is committed to provide its Energy Map solutions to selected partners from a list of 40 noteworthy cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco.

Read More

AEI Selected as MHEC Supplier

June 29, 2017 -- Carlisle, MA -- AEI has been selected as a Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium (MHEC) supplier to provide Facility Maintenance and Energy Assessment Software to MHEC members through June 2020. The letter from MHEC reads: "Your bid response was evaluated and determined to be the most responsible and responsive bid that offered best value to MHEC members".

Read More

Whole-Portfolio Real-Time Main Metering

AEI brings to market a whole-portfolio real-time main meter view of cities, towns and campuses by combining our AEI Soft Start Real-Time technology with our proven Energy Map visualization platform.

For the energy manager who needs to see energy use across the entire building stock in real-time, this affordable solution shadows the utility main meter, requires no BAS integration, feeds upstream applications such as kiosks, and gives the manager real-time insight into demand response opportunities on their own terms. With 1-minute resolution, rolling profiles and SMS and E-Mail alerts, this integrated solution can also help control billing-period peak usage. It's completely incorporated into our Energy Map platform for exploring historical usage, and that means one-stop-shopping for your energy team to study utility trends, track sustainability goals, and to know your real-time position for social awareness and real-time response.

Explore the Demo

The Bigger Apple: City of New York Energy Map

Building on our work last year to deliver an Energy Map of the City of Boston, we figured we should demonstrate a little scalability and bite on something bigger. The result is our City of New York Energy Map that combines data from the PLUTO and LL84 disclosure reporting datasets and shows electricity, natural gas, oil, steam and water consumption for over 13,000 properties with a combined GSF of over 1.8 billion ft2. The data includes GHG emissions, and for most properties we're able to show trends since 2011.

Read More in News

AEI on Twitter

AEI Commissioning

Are your buildings running efficiently? Let's look at the data and prove it to the managers who pay the utility bills. Efficiency problems? Download the AEI Commissioning Services brochure to see how we can help.