Johnson Controls working with Microsoft at its headquarters in Beijing to retrofit and optimize building operations. The Beijing West Campus covers almost 150,000 square meters and hosts more than 3,200 employees.
Despite the campus’s impressive size and the number of people working there, it’s already maximizing energy savings and reducing emissions. Until recently, its cloud-based Azure platform underpinned the upgrades. Doreen Deng, Vice President of Microsoft Greater China and Global Partners Solutions Lead, explains: “We are already using the most comprehensive and trusted SAS cloud platform to support digital transformation.”
Now the company is introducing new technologies to enhance Azure. It’s using Metasys building automation system to monitor heating and cooling equipment, and artificial intelligence-enabled OpenBlue Enterprise Manager to provide extra data analysis and insight generation capabilities.
For example, to improve the campus’s energy efficiency, managers reviewed its major power-consuming equipment, including the cooling tower. They were able to pinpoint where upgrades were necessary, which boosted the efficiency of air conditioning motors and lowered the tower’s power consumption. But they had to do more: “For energy-efficient operations management, we needed technology that could capture the numbers,” says Kaijun Chen, Senior Portfolio Manager, Microsoft Beijing West Campus, RE&F China, Microsoft.
Employees now have a healthier working environment – one that visitors can benefit from too. OpenBlue Enterprise Manager gives building managers an easy-to-understand snapshot of air quality across the property and provides granular detail on specific areas, such as meeting rooms. That means they can take steps to improve deteriorating air quality, like increasing the flow of fresh air through the buildings. “It takes around 30 mins …" says Kaijun Chen. "So, when outdoor air pollution is really bad, we’ll start this process at 6 a.m. before people start working.”
Before optimizing through OpenBlue Enterprise Manager, hundreds of air quality sensors across the campus recorded data about indoor and outdoor air quality. However, the property lacked an intelligent way of making sense of the vast amount of data.
The combination of Microsoft’s own software, Metasys building automation system and OpenBlue Enterprise Manager has culminated in extraordinary results for the Beijing headquarters so far. The Campus has achieved annual energy savings of 27.9 percent and recently passed an extensive energy audit conducted by the Beijing Municipal Government and the Haidian District Government. The deeper insights enabled by the technologies have also helped to increase the uptime of key equipment to more than 98 percent.
People’s experience of the workplace has improved too. Employees who suffer from pollution-induced allergies can now breathe easier at work, while Azure and OpenBlue Enterprise Manager maintain this comfort level throughout the day.
