Guide to Using Energy Management Control Systems (EMCSs) for Monitoring

Goal Statement:
To develop a procedure for assessing the monitoring capability of legacy EMCSs. The intent is to make existing systems usable for data monitoring and logging.

Results:
Data Logging Guides have been completed for EMCSs by Andover Controls, Siemens EMCS, and TAC Americas.

Each guide describes detailed procedures to determine the monitoring capability of the existing EMCS and to upgrade the EMCS to enable data logging. The guide outlines procedures that will enable the existing EMCS to measure hourly energy consumption of a building or facility. The parameters to monitor include electricity consumption, thermal consumption (flow and temperatures), room temperature, and other physical variables.

Each guide helps users understand and verify configuration of the existing controller to monitor the above parameters.

This process includes:

• Determining the functionality of the existing EMCS controller model and software version
   
• Upgrading the physical monitoring capability of the existing controller, if needed
   
• Selecting the correct sensors for the application in existing EMCS controllers
   
• Following procedures to set up and configure the EMCS to log the desired data
   

Once these procedures are fully implemented, the existing EMCS can be effectively used as a data logger. The guides offer a very cost-effective method of acquiring data-logger-quality monitoring from an existing EMCS.

Downloads and Links:

• "Data Logging Guides" Brochure (652 KB, 2 pp)
   
• Data Logging Guide for Andover Controls EMCS (1.97 MB, 91 pp)
   
• Data Logging Guide for Siemens EMCS (2.11 MB, 87 pp)
   
• Data Logging Guide for TAC Americas (2.23 MB, 92 pp)
   

Contact: David Claridge, Texas A&M University (TAMU), (979) 845-1280