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Thomas L. Friedman, the author of two best-selling books "The World is Flat” and "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," indicated that human beings used energies from hell - coal, oil, natural gas fuel - to launch the industrial revolution; however, the energy revolution of the new century needs energies from heaven - wind energy, solar energy, tidal energy, and others - to continue industrial development around the world. These greener energies may not been able to completely replace our existing energy sources that bring pollution but the green revolution will keep on moving forward.
In the Suzhou Industrial Park in China, a large corporation with factories, warehouses and office buildings has selected Advantech products to monitor the energy-saving operations for its new plant. In their preliminary assessment, Advantech found that the building automation solutions, including all facilities from an air conditioners, frequency converters, meters, and gas meters needed comprehensive monitoring of up to 1,500 positions. The site survey also discovered that the site includes a large number of devices from different suppliers, so when collecting relevant data from facilities, such as temperature, humidity, voltage and power current, the compatibility between the existing facilities and the communications module was also a key to achieving precise control.
After careful planning, Advantech provided 30 sets of BAS-3000 series DDC controllers with a network interface and large number of I/O modules, and also the browser-based WebAccess HMI software, to meet the monitoring needs of this project. Through connecting Advantech DDC controllers to the air conditioning system and the secondary pump, the acquired analog and digital signals can be transmitted to the host computer by Ethernet switches. WebAccess installed in the control center computer by itself has a powerful integration capability, obtaining data from various facilities such as meter, thermostat, and so on through RS485 and Ethernet connection. Later, it instantly displays dynamic data charts for users to browse and monitor conditions easily.
Advantech indicated that its building automation solutions can apply to both the old and new buildings for the effective energy-saving management. Furthermore, the network monitoring function of Advantech products and WebAccess can be easily integrated into the most cost-effective building energy-saving management for corporations.
