May 15, 2013 - According to the U.S. Department of Energy, heating, venting and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for 32% of a commercial buildings’ energy use. To help cut HVAC-associated costs, Jaga Climate Systems, a manufacturer of heating and cooling solutions, have announced five tips to help reduce energy spend and overall costs associated with HVAC systems.

May 7, 2013 - The May AutomatedBuildings theme—“Dynamic Data Fuels Deep Analytics” speaks to the importance the next level of deep analytics of almost everything will have, and how we as an industry will provide a new, level of deeper analytics connecting inquiring minds to almost everything with low cost real-time data.

April 23, 2013 - Two Canadian schools have made the list! Johnson Controls has released its 2013 Top Earth Day Champions in Education list to recognize higher education institutions and kindergarten through 12 (K-12) grade school districts in North America promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy projects at their facilities.

April 9, 2013 - We began 2013 with tips from energy managers working in commercial and institutional settings across B.C. This month, we have the answers to the question, “What’s the least understood aspect of helping an organization shift to energy efficiency?”

April 3, 2013 - Events Evolve Everyone was born from the chatter of the many articles and interviews in our April issue of AutomatedBuildings.com speaking to the importance of upcoming industry events. One of the most important functions that these events provide is they provide deadlines to present new concepts, products and services.

March 26, 2013 - The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has highlighted 16 policies to help remove market barriers across the economy to investments in energy efficiency in a new report.

March 5, 2013 - The subjects of this column; Platforms, Frameworks, and Databases focus on the fact that our industries’ connection communities have all converged at a similar place and point in the cloud. We all work with real time data or very fluid data and need to stabilize this slippery substance. The conclusion is we must store this data somewhere with a time freeze so we can analyze and visualize from anywhere by any device. The data model is similar for all real-time data industries and is what convergence is all about. We need to raise our gazes from our navels and look up and around at all the evolving data models and their interactions with everything. We need to learn to interact and decide how we can best bring value to our data. Data as a Service (DAAS) is a new concept for most of us and we need to better understand these new tools. AutomatedBuildings.com is committed to learning and teaching by connection to those leading us on this journey.

February 27, 2013 - The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has released the results of a comprehensive post-occupancy investigation comparing the performance of 12 “green” and 12 “conventional” office buildings across Canada and the northern United States. The study, Do green buildings outperform conventional buildings? Indoor environment and energy performance in North American offices, collected occupant surveys, physical building and energy use data.

February 13, 2013 - In a move to promote transparency around energy use in buildings, New York City, N.Y., has publicly posted 2011 energy benchmarking results for 2065 large commercial properties, which together cover more than 530 million sf.

February 13, 2013 - In 1999, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says it spearheaded the ‘1-Watt’ initiative, which led to the average new television’s standby consumption falling from about 5W to half a watt, saving energy for countries and money for consumers.

February 11, 2013 - Your cloud provides a lofty anywhere, any device, view of you and your corporate’s connected services. We need to humanize its interaction reflecting our expertise and connections to reality. We all need to talk about how we plan to meet and interact in the cloud. Our combined expertise in getting data ready is the value we bring the cold heartless data cloud. We need to customize and humanize our corner of the cloud for our purposes, bonding our fragmented industry into a presentation model the world can use.

January 29, 2013 - It’s not often that scientists get the opportunity to “walk the talk”. At CanmetENERGY in Ottawa, Ont., their approaches are being implemented as energy savings measures through the ISO 50001 Building 3 pilot project.