Oundle School, Peterborough

Tridium helps create low energy school of the future

Oundle School has achieved its environmental goal of creating an energy-efficient, low-carbon, hi-tech environment for pupils with the help of Tridium, the global leader in open integration technology for building automation systems.

The school's intelligent control system is built upon Tridium's NIAGARA^AX Framework^TM integrating KNX devices. This approach offers extensive energy savings, reduced maintenance costs, as well as a robust, reliable and future proof system.

Oundle is a quintessentially English boarding school, with 1050 students, located near Peterborough in the Northamptonshire countryside.

When the School decided to build a new facility for its Biology and Chemistry Departments, it wanted to create a single, automated building management system that could be serviced and maintained by the School's own team of technicians.

As the School is committed to minimising its impact on the environment, and buildings represent considerable energy saving potential, a key requirement of the project was to maximise energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions.

The installation of Tridium's NIAGARA^AX Framework^TM, by Andromeda Telematics, one of the UK's leading Systems Integrators, has enabled the integration of all building control functions on to one common platform.

To provide energy efficient environmental control, Andromeda integrated Tridium with a variety of KNX devices which enable all the control elements to communicate with an open standard protocol.

The control system integrates mechanical heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, permanent lighting and emergency lighting systems, passive window ventilators, solar panels and photo-voltaics equipment.

Tridium also provides the HVAC controls for the main plant room, enabling boiler sequencing, optimisation, weather compensation and pumps along with domestic hot water. Ventilation is controlled with Belimo dampers while the underfloor heating and zoned trench heating is controlled via Cheops drives and local room temperature controllers.

The whole site is connected together using a common IP network with NIAGARA^AX providing the front-end visualisation solution.

This offers full colour graphics of all the control applications including the HVAC plant which can be viewed using a standard web browser, such as Firefox or Internet Explorer. Set-points and items of plant can be controlled and monitored; the facility to graph and trend all systems is also available.

Metering is used to measure the loads for water, gas and electricity, and the energy generated by the photo-voltaic panels is also monitored.

Data is recorded and logged by an energy management package. This allows the school to monitor its energy profile, on or off-site by the remote web based management system.

Sensors, such as presence detectors, maximise energy efficiency and help reduce CO2. Heating and lighting are only switched on when needed, depending on time profiles and/or actual presence.

Lighting is controlled automatically in relation to daylight intensity, while electric window motors, connected to CO2 sensors and room temperature controllers, enable natural ventilation.

"The Tridium solution has provided Oundle with a fully open, web-based system architecture which is easy to access and control," says Jens Czudai, Engineer at Andromeda Telematics.

"The school now benefits from a fully open, web-based system architecture which is easy to access and control"

"We can monitor energy performance remotely and make simple adjustments to ensure the system is working as efficiently as possible."

The project

• New science block for English boarding school, located near Peterborough, UK.
• Services included mechanical heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, permanent lighting and emergency lighting systems, passive window ventilators, solar panels and photo-voltaics equipment.

The requirement

• A single, automated building management system serviced and maintained by the School's technicians.
• Lower fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

Tridium provides

• NIAGARA^AX Framework^TM system architecture.
• Software is embedded within a Tridium JACE 240 control unit, bringing together diverse control devices using the KNX protocol.
• The whole site is connected together using a common IP network with NIAGARA^AX providing the front-end visualisation solution.
• Tridium also provides the complex HVAC controls for the main plant room.

The results

• Services are integrated through the implementation of a single seamless, internet connected, web-based system.
• Full colour graphics of all the control applications including the HVAC plant can be viewed using a standard web browser, such as Firefox or Internet Explorer.
• Set-points and items of plant can be controlled and monitored by the graphics; along with the facility to graph and trend all of the systems.
• Easy access to the sophisticated controls network enables the school to achieve impressive energy efficiency savings.
• The School has realised the full green potential of the new building by maximising energy efficiency and reducing its carbon footprint.