Energy Savings Case Study Supermarket

Energy management system at major Romanian shopping centre with no loss of trading hours

A wireless energy management system have been installed at the Winmarkt shopping centre in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Controlling all the major HVAC and lighting equipment, the system was installed at this three-floor, city centre shopping mall in just five days, using three electricians without any loss of trading hours. The system comprised 11 WEMS control modules, along with WEMS I/O featuring NiagaraAX interface and a couple of JACE controllers. The rapid, nondisruptive installation was made possible by the WEMS wireless technology and by pre-building and configuring the necessary control panels off-site.

The situation

In April 2014, the shopping centre’s management team decided to take a proactive stance against rising energy prices by inviting our team to submit a complete monitoring and metering control solution. The system was required to control:

• The main chiller

• The main air handling unit

• 12 split air conditioning units

• 30 light circuits (20 operational, 10 reserve)

• Four escalators

• One hot air curtain

• 24 fan-coil circuits

Optimised system

The solution was based on the use of:

• 11 WEMS wireless controllers

• WEMS I/O featuring NiagaraAX interface

• Modbus wired I/O modules

• 2 JACE controllers to oversee all devices

For applications that demand complex control, and/or the integration of multiple networks, such as BACnet, LONworks, KNX, SNMP and others, we offer the JACE as an alternative site manager. There is an interface node and associated driver which enables various WEMS controllers and sensors to communicate with NiagaraAX running on the JACE platform. JACE offers multiple connectivity options for maximum flexibility and includes an integrated web-server to support customisable graphics visualisation.

Rapid installation

Innon installed the solution in just five days using only three electricians and two support engineers. Because the WEMS system is based on unique wireless technology, it simplifies the engineering involved. This results in much lower installation and commissioning costs; a typical system costs 40% less than the conventional wired alternative. This was evidenced at Winmarkt in Cluj-Napoca, where the downtime of the existing circuits was not significant and did not interrupt trading.

Use of WEMS wireless technology together with Niagara significantly simplified the project compared to the complexity associated with retrofitting a conventional wired BMS. The resulting lower project cost ensured that the system pays for itself far more quickly. This means the shopping centre operator can rapidly realise savings and improve operational efficiency.

Monitoring is key

Innon fitted three temperature/light sensors on each floor, as well as an external light/temperature sensor outside on the roof of the building. The latter acts as a reference upon which the control modules can make decisions regarding the building’s interior. The system includes monitoring of the 5 main subsystems:

• the main lighting circuits

• the chiller

• the air handling unit

• ground floor lighting

• fan-coils and air conditioning