Life in the fast lane - EMC (March 2009)

The finance industries are in the headlines for all the wrong reasons but they remain a demanding environment for the installation of building services.  We look at how the KNX building control protocol brought about time savings at Broadgate West in the City of London.

The fast-paced world of high finance leaves no time for trial and error and last minute tinkering when a company moves in to new offices. Instead, the firm needs to be able to hit the ground running in a tailor-made office space that meets their bespoke specification. What’s more, due to the specialist nature of financial services businesses, those requirements are usually very specific and exacting.

For the landlord, this not only means understanding the nature of their occupiers’ needs, but also minimising the time and level of disruption required to make any changes to the building. Importantly, because technology and market trends can change financially-based businesses so quickly, completion of the electrical fit out may never be definitive. So the solutions found must not only be cost-effective, fast to install and unerringly efficient, they must also be flexible enough to incorporate any future changes without any fuss, disruption or undue expense.

Fast & Flexible

When global financial services firm, UBS, took space in Broadgate West, a large commercial development in the heart of London’s financial centre, the company found that the Electrak ‘Lightrak’ KNX lighting control system already installed as part of the building’s Cat A fit out made tailoring the space to their needs quicker and easier.

“Although it is a lighting control system,” explains Electrak’s lighting control product manager Wayne Brewerton, “Lightrak KNX is designed to provide seamless interoperability with any KNX building control modules, which can be added to the system on a simple ‘plug and play’ basis. Any trained integrator can then integrate them to the system by plugging in a laptop anywhere on the system. And because KNX is a recognised protocol used by more than 100 leading manufacturers to manufacture over 7,000 certified products, there are niche solutions available to meet the needs of even the most demanding tenants.”

This interoperability was a big benefit to UBS who not only had their own specifications when they opted to take space at Broadgate West, but were also aware that they would inevitably also require reconfiguration of their space during their tenancy. The use of Electrak’s Lightrak KNX lighting controls has not only delivered an efficient lighting system but has made both small changes in lighting configuration and bigger changes like the addition of new controls, quick, easy and hassle-free.

Plug and Play – Anytime Anywhere

Billed as the world’s first open standard in home and building control, the KNX protocol is the culmination of 15 years’ knowledge and experience from previous standards, including EIB (European Installation Bus) EHS (European Home System) and BatiBus. The International quality standards, including EN, ISO and Chinese standard approvals offer guarantees of high product quality, but it’s KNX’s flexibility, interoperability and user-friendliness that really add value.

Designed for use in all building control applications, KNX is found in lighting control systems, shutter control, security, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, monitoring, alarming, water control, energy management….the list goes on and on. Increasingly specified for new buildings, it can also be used in existing buildings and KNX installations can be extended and adapted really quickly and easily with minimum disruption.

At Broadgate West, the Lightrak KNX lighting control system installed as part of the Cat A fit out was designed to include presence detectors on all eleven floors to ensure that electrical lights are switched on automatically when the building is occupied but that energy is never wasted by lights being left on unintentionally out of hours. Following UBS’s requirements, this Cat A system was quickly and easily modified to include manual switching, timed event controls and dimming/scene setting.

“Presence detection is very useful as a blanket tool,” explains Wayne “but it is not a one-size-fits all solution and often companies need different lighting control solutions – or a combination of solutions – in different areas of their premises. For example, dimming/scene setting is very useful in a meeting room environment where there may be a need to alter the intensity of the lighting for presentations or evening receptions. The advantage of a KNX-based system like Lightrak is that is that such modifications are quick and simple which makes tailoring the building to a specific occupier’s needs fast and hassle-free.”

Easy Integration

Lightrak’s ease of use is thanks to the plug and play nature of KNX products and the ETS (Engineering Software Tool) used to programme them. The lighting control system in the building was installed using Electrak’s buscom trunking, a busbar hybrid with power plus a separate integral communications bus. Lighting control components then simply clip on and plug in anywhere along the trunking, and are then configured by any trained operator simply by plugging in a laptop anywhere on the bus.

Also very conveniently, the KNX protocol has been designed to be simple enough for any trained integrator to use and larger companies often train a member of their IT or estates team to act as an in-house integrator, driving down the cost even further. The KNX Association also has partnership agreements with nearly 120 training centres internationally to help ensure that there is always KNX integration expertise available. What that means for the occupier is that they can take ownership of the building management system, configuring and reconfiguring any aspect of it as and when they need to. Potentially, the entire BMS configuration can be brought in-house, allowing the building to respond quickly to occupiers’ needs.

A Bespoke Solution

As a new building with a flexible Cat A fit out, Broadgate West provided a blank canvas for UBS which the company was able to modify to suit its commercial and HR requirements. A KNX-based, plug and play lighting control system is just as user-friendly for older buildings, however.

“For older buildings that need to update their building controls or add new elements to the system, KNX’s compatibility with other protocols, including DALI and LonWorks, via off-the-shelf ‘gateways’ presents another major advantage,” Wayne continues. “That’s because a KNX-based system means that there is no need to overhaul the existing building control functions.”

KNX allows a totally flexible approach to managing specification of new building controls or upgrades to existing systems, because it ensures that different products marketed by different manufacturers can communicate seamlessly with each other. This interoperability frees the user from any manufacturer tie in, ensuring a free choice of new components from the wide array of KNX products on the market.

Spoilt for Choice

Amongst the 100+ manufacturers worldwide that are members of the KNX Association, are some of the electronics industry’s biggest names, like Siemens, ABB and Jung. The KNX Association certifies all new products and, as it’s an open standard, all products are license-free, which, once again, can often help to reduce costs for the end user.

Even better news is that the choice is getting wider all the time. New manufacturers are joining month by month and the KNX Association’s partnership agreements with more than 50 technical universities means that the next generation of KNX product development seems pretty secure too.

“KNX is much more than the latest trend in building control systems,” Wayne adds, “its flexibility, ease of use and efficiency have been proven in commercial environments across the world, winning it fans amongst contractors, landlords and occupiers alike.”