Development of 'State-of-Art' Building Energy Dashboard: The C3 Dashboard
- 1. Development of a ‘State-of-the-Art’ Dashboard Ruchie Kothari MSSD, Carnegie Mellon University August 2012 Faculty: Vivian Loftness, Azizan Aziz, Erica Cochran, Peter Scupelli
- 2. Table of Contents 1. Building Energy Dashboards 2. Limitations of Existing Dashboards 3. Emerging Concepts in Energy Savings 4. Motivation 5. The C3 dashboard 6. Communication : : Interface 7. Consultant : : Recommendations 8. Controls : : Web-Based Actuation 9. Summary 10. Future Research Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 2
- 3. Building Energy Dashboard Building • Web-based display of building energy Environmental Conditions consumption data Outdoor Environmental Conditions • Monitors real-time energy consumption Current Electricity, Water, Gas • Provides history of energy data (hours, days, Usage months, years) Example 1: Agilewaves • Projects future energy consumption • Designed for institutional, commercial and residential buildings • Useful to building occupants and facility Energy Usage managers Kwh and Cost • Developed to influence users to become Example 2: Energy Management more energy conscious Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project
- 4. Limitations of Existing Dashboards Monitoring Capabilities A. Most commercial dashboards only display building energy data B. Information restricted to whole building energy A B consumption Analysis/Feedback C. Usually only generic advice given to users D. Feedback not designed to be understandable to both building occupants and facility managers C D Actuation Capabilities E. Limited control of building systems /appliances F. Multiple dashboards to control different building systems such as temperature, lighting, plug-loads etc E F Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 4
- 5. Emerging Concepts in Energy Savings Impact of Awareness Impact of Recommendations Impact of Control Tool: Provide the users with information Tool: Provide users with actions to reduce Tool: Provide users with personal controls about the building’s energy consumption energy consumption with regular reminders for building equipment in their office Outcome: 16% to 36% savings in energy Outcome: 6 % energy savings were Outcome: 43% savings were identified in use are seen during 4 to 12 week observed when users in an office were the IW by providing the users with lighting competitions between dormitories in provided with regular reminders to turn off control in their personal spaces through universities computers when not in use dashboards and 64% savings when provided feedback with control ‘Campus Conservation Nations’ by Lucid Dashboard developers Field study of small office and library by PIER Users provided with manual control of lights in lab study by CBPD Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 5
- 6. Motivation • There is a critical need for a new ‘state-of-art’ dashboard to: – Communicate comfort conditions as well as energy use – Provide expert recommendations for strategic reduction of energy use – Provide controls with immediate feedback on energy savings • Hypothesis: – Providing users in an office with a personal dashboard with the C3 functions will help significantly reduce overall energy consumption and will help maintain comfortable indoor conditions • Part of GPIC Task 4.5: • Interdisciplinary Development Team: – Vivian Loftness, Azizan Aziz, Peter Scupelli, Anthony Rowe, Bertrand Lasternas , Ray Yun, Flore Marion, Clarence Agbi , Korbinian Breu, Johannes Lechner, Ruchie Kothari Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 6
- 7. C3 Dashboard Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 7
- 8. The C3 Dashboard: Communication, Consultant, Control • Designed to be used by every occupant in a commercial office • C3 provides an Integrated Platform for: • Communication = Energy Consumption + Environmental Settings • Consultant = Real-Time Case-Specific Recommendations • Control = All Possible Equipment in Personal Work-Station/ Office • One dashboard to help manage heating/cooling, lighting, ventilation as well as plug-loads Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 8
- 9. Technical Complexities • Device Interfacing • Temperature, lighting, ventilation and plug-load consumption simultaneously and easily Wireless Plug Meters Manual Controlled Interior Blinds • Smart Analytics • Algorithms and databases that provide useful recommendations and comparisons Environmental Sensors Personal Environment • Ease of Deployment Module (PEM) • Retrofit installations Hence, a team of electrical engineers, computer scientists, human-computer-interaction developers, building research scientists are involved in the project Monitoring and Control Interface Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 9
- 10. Communication Complexities • Data easily understandable • Suit users with little time to spare to use the dashboard • Graphs to address all types of users • Users with advanced to basic knowledge • Filter data and display only useful information • Large amount of data can be displayed on the dashboard • Maintain Engagement Hence, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) experiments are carried out for the dashboard interface Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 10
- 11. Experimental Testbed: Intelligent Workspace 7000 sq ft Facility for Testing Building Performance at Carnegie Mellon University Prototype 1 to be developed for deployment at the IW which has advanced wireless systems to meter and sub-meter energy usage, sensors for occupants, indoor-outdoor environmental conditions and actuation systems for heating, cooling, lighting, plug-load management. Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 11
- 12. Communication : : INTERFACE Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 12
- 13. Usability Tests “Set Dashboard to follow Schedule” The Energy Hog : “ Don’t be One!” Several Usability Tests were carried 6.00 PM out to determine: • Useful features for C3 • Appropriate graphics to display information – for understandability and accuracy Personas This Includes: 1. Feature Prioritization Exercises 2. Design Workshops 3. Communication Tests 4. Scenario Development 5. Persona Creation 6. Photo Study 7. Navigation Test Scenarios Communication Tests Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 13
- 14. Identifying Useful Features Exercises to understand- ‘Who’ the users are ‘When’ would the occupants use C3 ‘How’ would the occupants use C3 Features: 1. My Dashboard Profile 2. Automatic/Manual Control Feature 1: My Dashboard Profile 3. Ranking of Recommendations 4. Alerts 5. Comfort Meter 6. My Commitment 7. Ask the Expert 8. Message to Facility Manager… Feature 2: Automatic/Manual Controls Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 14
- 15. Designing Informative Graphics Graphs developed through Communication Tests with Dashboard Development Team as well as End-Users Step 1: Identify Information Requirements Step 2: Create graphs based on real-time information Step 3: Team Test Step 4: End-User Test Step 5: Modifications and Final Proposed Option A: Option B : Proposed : IEQ with Good-Average-Bad Scale IEQ with Baseline Reference IEQ with Scale + Baseline Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 15
- 16. Developing the Interface : Earlier Version (Temperature Page) Interface developed through Feature Prioritization and Navigation Tests with Development Team and End-Users Temperature Page: Provides information, feedback and control for heating and cooling Item Selection: Allows user to Item Controls: select the items Provides item which he can specifications and control control options Environmental Conditions: Provides current as well as previous temperature details Recommendation: Generated based on existing conditions and potential energy saving. Ranked in order from most effective to least effective Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 16
- 17. Developing the Interface : Latest Version (Temperature Page) It was interesting to note that the development team and the end-users had different rankings for the features Dashboard Team End-Users Energy Consumption Graph 1. Comparison To Recommendations 2. Recommendations My Environmental Settings 3. My Environmental Settings Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 17
- 18. LATEST Version Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 18
- 19. Home Page : Energy + Environment (summary) Home Page Profile Outdoor Conditions Overall Energy Ask the Expert Consumption Local Control Indoor Environmental Conditions Comparison to Office Average and Office Best Practice My Overall Energy Consumption My Overall Comfort Meter My Office Ranking Recommendations: Ranked and from all categories My Commitment Detailed Report Share On Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 19
- 20. Category Page (HVAC) : Energy + Environment (detail) Temperature Page Energy Consumption for Heating and Temperature Settings Cooling Comparison to Office Average and Office Best Practice Short Term Recommendations: Long term Ranked and only Recommendations from heating and cooling category Recommendations Link to All Sorted by Energy Recommendations Savings Voting Meter Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 20
- 21. Category Page (Plugloads) : Energy (appliance break-down) Plugloads Page Plugloads Profile Historic data Energy Consumption Local Control Break-Up for Appliances Flexible Graph Selection Energy Usage Details Recommendations: Ranked and for Plugloads only Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 21
- 22. Consultant : : RECOMMENDATIONS Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 22
- 23. Recommendations In order to generate expert recommendations, it is important to take into consideration: 1. Historical Inferences Base on individual’s usage pattern Base on typical appliance characteristics and 2. Database Inferences possible recommendations Base on office/appliance sensor, actuation 3. Community Inferences capabilities Base on indoor, outdoor environmental 4. Environmental Inferences conditions and user preferences A methodology has been created to generate recommendations for plug-load management. This methodology can be modified to provide recommendations for other categories. Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 23
- 24. Decision Tree for Recommendations Algorithm to identify state of appliances 1 User to specify usage requirements 2 Identification of possible recommendations from database 3 Power input from software + time input from user 4 Sort recommendations based on historical, community, database 5 inferences Alert 1/Recommendations based on analysis 6 Algorithm to check for implementation 7 Loop continues based on check 8 Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 24
- 25. Energy Savings : Impact of Actions Example : Reducing Time Spent in Idle Mode for Desktop Goal: Reduce time in idle mode Active = 29 % Active = 15 % Idle = 45 % Idle =3% Analysis: CPU not in sleep mode Sleep = 26 % Sleep = 80 % Off = 0% Off = 1.6 % Intervention: Reset sleep mode Energy Consumption (1 week): 8.9 kwh Energy Consumption (1 week): 2.5 kwh Weekday Weekday Weekday Weekday Weekday Weekend Weekend Weekend Weekend Weekend Before Intervention After Intervention Energy Savings of 71% Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 25
- 26. CONTROLS : : Web-Based Actuation Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 26
- 27. The Intelligent Workplace Dashboard: The C3 Dashboard http://rayyun.net/test02/upload05/workloads/monitor3.php Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 27
- 28. Summary Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 28
- 29. Key-Points • Interdisciplinary and user-based approach adopted to design C3 • Determined key-features for communication, consultancy and control • Findings from this study are used to develop the live interface • Initial prototype focus only on plug-loads • Database prepared for appliances, their characteristics and user behavior w.r.t. plugloads • Decision trees created to integrate database and generate logic based case-specific recommendations • Initial diagnosis and personal interventions have yielded positive results – Proving that the 3c approach works Monitor + Diagnose + Recommend + Implement = Energy Savings Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 29
- 30. Next-Steps Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 30
- 31. Future Research • Continue developing C3 and deploy prototype to study changes in user behavior and energy savings on large scale • Modify prototype based on user feedback and data analysis to establish credibility • Continue research to include heating, cooling, lighting and ventilation categories • Develop new technologies that speak to each other-making the dashboard easier to deploy and economically viable Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 31
- 32. Thank You Special thanks to: Bertrand Lasternas Ray Yun Maitri Shah Ruchie Kothari, MSSD 2012 Synthesis Project 32