HVAC giant Mitsubishi Electric has upgraded its MELCloud suite of monitoring and controls products, promising to offer building operators and facilities managers unprecedented insight into their building services.
The manufacturer believes that operators who use its subscription-based range of hardware and software to monitor performance, while at the same time utilising MELCloud’s diagnostic abilities, can significantly improve building efficiency.
The company has initially launched the commercial version, with an upgraded home version following in the coming months, along with a cellular version using different hardware that doesn’t rely on Wi-Fi connection.
Seb Desmottes, Digital Transformation Manager, said:
I strongly believe that the cellular option could be the answer for many, even for commercial. It uses a single SIM across Europe that switches automatically between operators and the costs are covered for 10 years. It opens up a lot of doors at low cost.
The MELCloud Commercial IOT platform makes use of the sensors available in the Mitsubishi Electric cooling and heating systems to provide data collection, condition monitoring, remote control and diagnostics anywhere in the world.
The manufacturer believes that with increasing pressure on companies to decarbonise and to reduce energy costs, the platforms will prove popular with building operators that want to improve building performance without the outlay of a full BMS.
But at a more basic level, the platform can also be used to alert maintenance contractors to performance issues, which can then be investigated remotely, saving an onsite visit. Based on its trials with customers throughout Europe and the UK, it claims that this remote monitoring alone can save 75-95% in servicing costs.
Manny Lal, Product Manager for Controls and Innovation, said:
There is a big focus on decarbonising buildings, but you can’t reduce what you don’t measure, so our new platform will improve and simplify building management for any organisation.
The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards for commercial buildings are predicted to move quickly from the current minimum EPC rating of ‘E’ to a ‘B’ rating by 2030, he added:
Around 85% of the 1.75 million commercial buildings in the UK are currently below a ‘B’ rating so there are a lot of properties in danger of being left behind.
The control and monitor functions can show an entire estate or an individual room, delivering dynamic, real-time information on the systems and their performance.
The platform is designed to be flexible and can be operated by several different user types: building operators can remotely manage, monitor and control HVAC systems in multiple buildings from one central location; in the systems energy management App, energy managers can monitor and reporting energy use on anything from individual units in single rooms, through to an entire building and up to estate level monitoring; and service and maintenance teams can use the platform to deliver refrigerant flow diagrams and graphical representations of equipment performance live online.
The platform is available in two subscription packages: The basic connect monitoring offering and the comprehensive optimise package, which includes service and maintenance and additional energy optimising functions.
Up to 50 Mitsubishi Electric indoor and outdoor units including four MODBUS energy meters can be connected to MELCloud Commercial through a single gateway via a 4G SIM card or LAN Ethernet connection, with multiple gateways able to link up centrally to provide a global overview.
Other non-HVAC systems can also be monitored and controlled, with alerts able to be sent to the building manager if there is an alarm, and record the energy consumption of the third-party equipment, such as refrigerators and lighting.
The company is particularly proud of its energy dashboard, which allows comparison of the energy consumption of building, floors or rooms, right up to multiple buildings, ranking their usage by kW per hour, or by the number of temperature or consumption alerts. Going forward, Mitsubishi Electric plans to rank anonymised data of different buildings to allow building operators to benchmark their data.
The company believes that by making the product backwards compatible for systems up to 20 years old it will provide an unprecedented retrofit flexibility too.
You can visit Mitsubishi Electric on its stand at InstallerSHOW at the NEC on 25-27 June.
Register for FREE tickets here: installer-2024-splash.reg.buzz
