The Drive School: A study in integration - ECN (October 2008)
The specification for the electrical installation was far beyond that usually seen in a school environment, making The Drive School a best practice example of what can be achieved through creative electrical integration. This article appeared in the October 2008 issue of Electrical Contracting News.
The Government is investing £45 billion in re-building Britain’s schools, with a target to re-build or significantly refurbish all secondary schools and 8,900 primary schools by 2016. It’s a massive undertaking and one which aims to ensure that schools can offer both a better equipped, fit for purpose environment for learning and a more comfortable, secure and cost effective building.
At the Drive School in Gateshead, Gateshead Council has already completed an ambitious refurbishment programme to update the school buildings, improve safety and security for staff and children and enhance the school’s energy efficiency. A complete electrical re-fit had an important role to play in achieving these objectives, bringing to the school an integrated, controllable system that ensures energy is never wasted, while services are of an excellent standard. The specification for the electrical installation was far beyond that usually seen in a school environment, making The Drive School a best practice example of what can be achieved through creative electrical integration.
Fast Fit
Amongst the challenges facing Gateshead Council in carrying out the refurbishment of The Drive School was the importance of completing the works without disrupting the teaching schedule. The plan was to refurbish the school without having contractors on site during term time and with no disruption to the ordinary school calendar, so the project had to be completed within the six-week summer break. While this might seem like a long holiday for children and teachers, it’s a very tight schedule indeed for a project of this nature, and finding an electrical system that would provide a fast fit solution for the project’s needs was a key element in the specification.
“We needed a completely plug and play power distribution system that could be fitted quickly,” comments Gateshead Council’s head of design Peter Udall, “but we also needed to ensure that it would integrate with a wide variety of building management systems. Because the Electrak system is completely pre-wired and just push locks together, it was an ideal choice as far as plug and play was concerned. What’s more, because it uses the KNX protocol, which is used by more than 100 manufacturers across Europe, we could design a fully integrated building management system around it in complete confidence that we have the flexibility to add further elements quickly and simply if and when we need to.”
Gateshead Council’s contracting arm, LES, used Electrak Buscom busbar hybrid throughout the school building in the ceiling voids to provide both power distribution and signal bus distribution for the lighting control system. Electrak developed Buscom to meet the increasing need for pre-fabrication and flexibility with overhead power and control distribution systems. As with busbar, it provides power distribution for lighting, fan coil units and any other small power needs, but it also provides signal bus distribution by means of its integral twisted pair communications control circuit, which combines with the Lightrak lighting control system.
Further time savings were achieved on site by the use of Electrak busbar as the distribution system for the wall sockets.
Energy Efficient Lighting
For design of the lighting control system, the objectives at The Drive School were two-fold: to provide an energy efficient lighting system that would be flexible and simple; and to enhance security without wasting energy.
Throughout the building, manual switching was used as standard, allowing teachers to switch on lights in classrooms as and when they are required for the individual class. In less frequented areas, such as toilets, presence detectors were installed to ensure that lights are only switched on when the room is occupied and are switched off again when they are no longer needed.
Peter Udall continues: “The level of electric light required in each classroom varies depending on the location of the room, the time of year, the weather and the activities taking place inside the classroom. As a result, while presence detectors are ideal for the toilet areas, only manual switching could offer the level of flexibility needed for the classrooms. However, a key concern was that no lights should be left on in the building overnight and the interoperability of the Electrak Lightrak KNX system enabled us to integrate the lighting control system with the intruder alarm system to achieve this.”
By integrating the Electrak lighting control system and the intruder alarm system, the installation ensures that all interior lights are switched off at The Drive School as soon as the intruder alarm is set. As a result, there is no possibility of lights being accidentally left on while the building is unoccupied. The same principle has also been applied to the school’s air conditioning system, and integration of the air con with the intruder alarm ensures that this system is also switched off automatically as part of the ‘sweep’ that takes place when the intruder alarm is switched on.
The exterior lights, meanwhile, are controlled by both a light sensor and a timer. This dual control system ensures that the exterior lights are only switched on when it becomes sufficiently dark for them to be required, allowing switch on time to fluctuate with the weather conditions and time of year. Switch off time, conversely, is set at midnight and this is controlled by the timer to avoid energy being wasted unnecessarily during the night. If it is sufficiently dark at 6am, the light sensors automatically switch the exterior lights back on again in the morning until the start of the school day.
A Cool Solution
A major element of the school’s energy efficiency plans was to control the heating centrally, and, thanks to the interoperability of the KNX protocol, this was delivered through the lighting control system.
The critical element of the heating control system is a Jung KNX thermostat which was plugged directly into the busbar in every classroom and the hall areas. This enables the system to monitor the temperature of every room on an individual basis and adjust the heating accordingly to comply with a pre-set optimum temperature.
Peter Udall explains: “The heating system provides the School Principal with complete controllability for each individual classroom and hall area. A panel mounted in her office allows her to select the required temperature for each room, so, for example, she is able to set the temperature for the sports hall at a lower level than is required for the school library. Outputs linked to the Electrak lighting control system then ensure that the heating system works to maintain the optimum temperature for each room.”
There is a large heater in each room with an internal fan that generates heat. A timed event controller linked to the lighting control system ensures that the heating is switched on at the start of the school day and off again at night. The fan within each heater is also controlled by an output from the lighting control system so that it is only switched on if that particular room drops below the pre-programmed ‘ideal’ temperature, and is switched off again once the optimum temperature has been achieved.
The system is also interfaced with the school’s boiler so that if all rooms in the school reach their ideal temperature the boiler automatically shuts down, saving fuel and reducing the school’s energy bills. To enhance the school’s energy efficiency still further, the hot water system is also linked to a timed event controller via the Electrak lighting control system. This allows the hot water system to be switched off automatically when it is not required.
“This level of controllability not only makes the school more energy efficient, it allows the Principal to adjust the settings quickly and easily using the panel in her office to ensure the building provides a comfortable environment for teachers and staff,” Peter Udall continued. “What’s more, the energy savings equate to a significant reduction in running costs.”
Safe and Sound
While interfacing the intruder alarm system with the lighting controls has added to the Drive School’s energy efficiency, the benefits of integration do not end there. One of the other key design features of the electrical installation is the way in which integration through the Electrak lighting control system has allowed the school to improve safety and security.
In addition to prompting a sweep of any lights left on when the alarm is set, the interface with the intruder alarm also ensures that all lights in the building are switched on if the intruder alarm is triggered. This security measure acts as an immediate deterrent to thieves and vandals as well as helping to improve visibility for the police.
Similarly, the fire alarm system is also interfaced with the KNX lighting control system and this, too, triggers all the school’s lights to come on when the alarm is activated to help evacuate the building.
“The interface between the alarm systems and the lighting control system delivers an immediate emergency response,” comments Peter Udall, “enabling people on the ground to react quickly whether they are staff from the school or emergency services personnel. This is a very sophisticated use of lighting controls, which would not ordinarily be seen in a school environment. However, it is ideally suited to a situation where there are large volumes of people, limited exit points and a demographic that is likely to panic in the event of a fire.”
Safety in the event of a fire is also improved by the interface between the fire alarm and the door access control system, achieved via the Electrak/KNX lighting control system. Magnetic locks are fitted on security doors throughout the building to improve security and ensure that access to the building is restricted to staff and students. However, when the fire alarm is triggered, these doors are automatically released, providing an easier escape route for staff and students and improved access for the emergency services. The system is also used to automatically release all fire door magnets to help prevent the path of any fire.
A Practical Approach
Attention to detail in the design of the KNX integration not only ensures that safety and security are improved, it also offers the school practical benefits.
“The bell that sounds for the change of class or the end of the day is a feature of all schools,” explains Peter Udall, “and timing this accurately is important. However, many schools still rely on this being done manually throughout the day. At The Drive School, both the class change bell and the door bell at reception are linked up to the building management system control panel via Electrak’s lighting controls to ensure that the class change bell rings on time every time.”
The class change bell uses 230v a/c sounders, which, thanks to the lighting control system, ring automatically. The reception door bell is linked to a timer, connected via the lighting control system, and is programmed to ring within the administration offices during the school day but sound throughout the school outside of usual operating hours to alert the caretaker’s attention.
Smarter Schools
In today’s education arena, school’s have their own corporate identity, they are aligned with industry and competing to attract not only the best students but the pockets of specialist funding available to high achieving institutions. Against this backdrop, the school environment is becoming closer and closer to the business world, with smart buildings that are designed to deliver excellent services tailored to meet the needs of the end user.
Effective integration of the varied electrical systems not only offers a school like The Drive School increased control over its estate, it also provides increased control over energy consumption; an issue that sits at the heart of school finances. What‘s more, integration of different services within a single building management system provides the flexibility that schools need to adjust to changes in the teaching programme, increased out of hours activities and demand for non-core use of school facilities. A plug and play lighting control system such as Electrak’s, offers endless opportunities for a fully programmable, flexible building management system and, as the school rebuilding programme continues, these opportunities will, surely, be explored still further.
Read more about Electrak Buscom Trunking, Lightrak lighting control system and KNX…
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