Technical report CAA 25/11/17 (Portfolio FINAL)

Patrick Foo

Energy Market Authority

Energy Planning & Development Division

10 Dover Drive

Singapore 138682

Dear Mr. Foo,

Enclosed for your kind attention is a response to the request for proposals on solving an engineering problem in Singapore. This report’s intention is to recommend improvements to the Building Management System (BMS) through implementing a smart metering system in the Singapore’s public hospital.

The proposal contains background information of the problem that has been identified and the proposed solution to counter the problem along with its benefits and limitations.

Thank you for your time and attention to read this letter. If you have any question about the information of the report, feel free to contact us and we look forward to assisting you.  

Yours Sincerely,

Toh Wei Jie

Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (Building Services)

Singapore Institute of Technology

Executive Summary

This proposal discusses the current implementation of utility meter reading used in Singapore’s public hospital being inefficient for the facility management staff when gathering the data of energy consumption. It also introduces the importance of an advanced metering system in a building and how it can better improve energy management along with the benefits and the limitation of the proposed and alternative solutions.

The current practice of data recording requires the facility management staff to rely on the data obtained from the bill mailed to the hospital. The proposed solution “Tesseract” is able to gather the different meter readings remotely and store data. The data gathered is used by the data analyst to study for the better management of energy consumption efficiency.

The report also describes various methods of developing with solutions that were used in our research. Primary research method includes attending a smart metering social networking event by one of our team members and interviewing Professor Jusuf of Singapore Institute Technology (SIT) to better understand the functions of a smart metering system. A secondary research method to study the current implementation includes reviewing official organization websites research from Singapore Power (SP) group and Energy Market Authority (EMA).

1.0               Introduction

This proposal is with regards to the Call for Proposal (CFP) by Energy Market Authority (EMA) in developing technical solutions for a smart metering trial.

Known globally for being a "clean and green" country, Singapore continues to improve on this aspect through educating the community as well as implementing sustainable solutions to current problems. The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development (IMCSD) aims to make at least 80% of its buildings green by 2030 (mnd.gov.sg, 2011).  Transparency of the building's energy performance would provide building owners relevant data to analyse (BCA website, 2017), bridging the goal to more greener buildings in the future.

The current metering system for a typical public hospital in Singapore is to read the electricity, gas and water meter individually (EMA, 2016). The facility management staff heavily relies on the bills mailed to them of the averaged bimonthly read data. Thus, the current process of obtaining the energy consumption data is inaccurate and not easily accessible to the facility management staff. Ultimately, the operation of the public hospital will be affected due to the poor energy management in the building.

Implementing a smart metering system in Singapore’s public hospitals allows the facility management staff to have access to energy consumption data remotely (EMA, 2016). This will eliminate the problem of relying on the monthly bills mailed them to calculate the utility consumption of the building.

There have been reports that there is an increasing number of patients in the public hospital making it crucial for the operation of the hospital is not disrupted. According to Siong (2015), the number of patients in Singapore is increasing. The implementation of installing the smart meter would allow the data analyst to study patterns of the data consumption so that it would improve the day to day operation of the hospital.

2.0               Problem Statement

An integrated utilities metering system in public hospitals should aim to make data collection of energy consumption to be more efficient for the facility management staff.

However, collating data on gas, electrical and water consumption remotely (ema.gov.sg, 2016) in the hospital is not implemented yet. Currently, the facility management staff relies on the utility bill to be mailed to them so as to do manual data calculation of energy consumption.

By implementing a smart metering system, the facility management staff would be able to retrieve and access the energy consumption remotely for smoother operation flow.

3.0               Purpose Statement

The aim of this report is to propose the implementation of Anacle smart energy management solution to the public hospitals in Singapore. The solution includes installation of smart meters, which will aid the facility management team to manage their energy consumption efficiently and for the data analyst to study the patterns found in the energy consumption. The solution would also improve the Building Management System (BMS) and the operational needs of the public hospital.

4.0               Current Implementation

According to EMA (2016), it is common practice to read the individual electricity, water and gas consumption manually and separately. The facility management staff regularly takes reference of the data energy consumption data manually from the bill (refer to Appendix A) as there is no remote device to help them to collect the data.

The facility management staff reads the energy consumption bimonthly and the average each of the energy consumption will be used to compare with the standard usage of the similar industry in the nation.

5.0           Proposed Solution

Our team proposes that EMA adopt Anacle smart management solution to Singapore’s public hospital. The proposed solution will modify the current traditional implementation of meter reading, where extracting the individual readings of the gas, water and electricity data are collated physically on the premises. Instead, output data from the utility meters are routed to the smart meter. Readings from these utilities can be seen through the capacitive screen from the smart meter. Leveraging on the Internet of things (IoT), the readings from the Tesseract is stored in the system and building owners are able to see this information through the web browser on their computer. (refer to Appendix B and Appendix C)

5.1               Technical specification

The Tesseract has four digital Input/output and four analogue input along with an ethernet and a USB 2.0 port. The output from the gas, water and electrical meters will route to the analogue input of the system.

Tesseract uses the Modbus RTU RS-485 protocol, an IoT protocol compliance for communication. This means that the system is able to support up to 31 nodes across 1200 meters but has to be arranged in a daisy chain (refer to Figure 1). It is compatible with a comprehensive number of communication networks which includes Starlight communicator (refer to Appendix D) which is used in complement with Tesseract. An ethernet port is connected to the router and routed to a secured service provider.

Figure 1.           Arrangement in daisy chain (http://jamod.sourceforge.net/, 2010)

5.2               Existing example of proposed concept implemented

In the United Kingdom(UK), the Moorfields Eye Hospital adopted a smart metering system and has only been reaping benefits since. Harding (2017), director of estates and facilities, claims that the system has given him the appropriate data he needs through the integration of various systems into one platform. Through this, Harding shares spending lesser man-hours to maintain the system. Thus, overall operating costs to maintain the building have gone down and productivity rises.

5.3               Benefits of proposed solution

Tesseract would be an asset to the Singapore’s public hospitals as it can increase the productivity of the facility management staff. By having one platform to view the overall building’s energy management, lesser manpower is required. Accuracy is also attained through the periodically recorded information of gas, water and electricity utilized.

5.3.1 Data extraction

Stored information from the smart meter can be assessed by data analysts to view and study patterns. This data extracted will be used in the BMS for better flow in the day to day operations through the building automation programming.

5.3.2 Operating System

Running on the Android operating system, Tesseract is able to install energy management applications. Further developing on these applications makes the smart metering system future proof.

5.4               Limitations of proposed solution

In terms of limitations, a very old system may not be suitable to implement the latest smart metering technology. Should building owners plan to use smart metering systems for existing buildings, they may need to conduct an assessment to determine whether the current system is compatible.

This means that the building owners need to plan an overhaul or upgrade their existing metering systems.

6.0               Alternative Solution

Schneider PowerLogic system is an alternative solution to improve the metering system. Similar to Anacle’s Tesseract, Schneider PowerLogic system meter-monitor key distribution points. Schneider PoweLogic system meter helps to track, record and report all real-time performance conditions of all distribution points, allowing the data analytics team to analyse the data collected and do the necessary control measures. In this way, the data analytics team can implement changes based on trends found in the data collected.

Schneider PowerLogic system has many meters and software that helps to collect and display all the data collected. (Refer to Appendix E)

 

6.1               Limitations of Alternative Solution

Implementing the Schneider PowerLogic system to the building’s utility infrastructure may pose as a limitation as it is brand proprietary. This means that it has a prerequisite of having the current utility infrastructure implementation from Schneider. The cost incurred to reconstruct the current metering system that is only compatible with Schneider PowerLogic system may not be a sensible decision.

Implementing Tesseract would be less laborious as Tesseract is not brand proprietary. The cost of implementing Tesseract will be much lower as the building owners will only need to pay for the installation of the meter readings display and can also use the existing metering systems that they have already installed.

In the context of hospitals, it will be troublesome to change the whole metering systems infrastructure. In the process, it might cause certain complications to the mission-critical systems which may affect the occupants of hospital. However, this system is viable for buildings that are still in the planning phase in the construction.

7.0           Methodology

After researching online, the team found out that the facility management staff in Singapore hospital are still using the conventional way of obtaining different readings regarding the total consumption of water, electricity and gas utilized in the building. The facility management staff also relies on the bills mailed monthly to them to monitor the utility consumption in the building. Thus, we decided to focus on smart metering systems for hospitals. This section of the report introduces the team’s primary and secondary research methods.

7.1           Primary Research

In terms of primary research, one of our team members participated in Anacle’s smart metering networking session at Anacle, the company of the smart metering system. The event allowed us to understand more about Tesseract smart metering solution and how it improves the efficiency of the current metering system. Email conversations (refer to Appendix G) were exchanged between our team and Professor Steve Jusuf, who is currently involved in the study of smart metering systems. In addition, the team also approached Professor Steve Jusuf for a short interview session to clarify doubts and enhance our understanding of the smart metering system. The interview questions can be found in the proposal (refer to Appendix F).

7.2           Secondary Research

In terms of secondary research, information on the current method of obtaining utility bills (refer to Appendices A) was obtained from the SP Group website, and news articles regarding on power outage in Singapore hospitals were examined in order to determine the correlation between the flaw in the existing metering system and the impact on the operation of a hospital. A media release by Building & Construction Authority (BCA) regarding the masterplan document was used as a reference to ensure that both the proposed and the alternative solution are aligned to the objectives of BCA Green Mark Scheme. In addition, websites on Schneider’s

PowerLogic and Anacle’s smart metering systems were referenced to determine the benefits of a smart metering system and how it benefits the operation Singapore hospitals.

8.0           Conclusion

The current implementation of energy consumption management is tedious and inefficient for the facility management staff. Moreover, the bimonthly average reading pattern of the energy consumption is not accurate. As such, it is crucial that the public hospitals in Singapore improve on the current implementation by EMA so that the energy consumption data collected can be more accurate.

The proposed implementation of Anacle’s Tesseract smart meter can improve the current practice of energy consumption management. It reduces the time and effort for the facility management staff by gathering the different data of energy consumption readings remotely.

With the proposed implementation, the data of the energy consumption would be more accurate as the readings collected will be in real time as compared to the current practice which uses average readings of two months. Therefore, the change of the metering system would improve the productivity of the facility management staff and sustainability of the public hospital.

References

 

Anacle Systems (2017, Sep 25}. [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPaSPLB8YPA 

 

Building Construction Authority (n.d.). 3rd Green Building Masterplan, BCA. Retrieved from https://www.bca.gov.sg/GreenMark/others/3rd_Green_Building_Masterplan.pdf

 

Building Construction Authority. (n.d.). Healthier and Greener Buildings in next lap of Singapore’s Green Building Journey [Media Release]. Retrieved from https://www.bca.gov.sg/newsroom/others/Media_Release_SGBW_2017_120917.pdf

 

Estelle Schweizer. (2017, May 15). Moorfields Eye Hospital: Improving Facility Visibility with EcoStruxure™ for Healthcare, Schneider Electric. Retrieved from http://blog.schneider-electric.com/healthcare/2017/05/15/moorfields-eye-hospital-improving-facility-visibility-ecostruxure-healthcare/

Michael Tegos. (2017, Jan 30). This-10-year-old startup has gone public to turn Asia’s buildings green. Tech in Asia. Retrieved from https://www.techinasia.com/anacle-energy-management-ipo-profile

Ministry of National Development (2011). Urban Sustainability R&D Congress 2011, Ministry of National Development. Retrieved from https://www.mnd.gov.sg/urbansustainability/2011/greenbuilding.html

Modbus Protocol Basics. (2010, Feb 16). [Figure]. Retrieved from https://www.bca.gov.sg/GreenMark/others/3rd_Green_Building_Masterplan.pdf

Olivia Siong. (2015, Oct 10). More hospitals needed as patient numbers rise due to ageing population: PM Lee, Channel NewsAsia. Retrieved from
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/more-hospitals-needed-as-patient-numbers-rise-due-to-ageing-popu-8223796

Schneider. (2017). Smart-UPS On-Line, Schneider. Retrieved from https://www.schneider-electric.com/en/product-range/61918-smart-ups-on-line/

Schneider. (2017). PowerLogic PM 8000 series, Schneider. Retrieved from https://www.schneider-electric.com/en/product-range/62252-powerlogic-pm8000-series-/

Schneider. (2017). Integrated Power & Energy Management Software, Schneider. Retrieved from https://www.schneider-electric.us/en/product-subcategory/52592-integrated-power---energy-management-software/

Sue-Ann Cheow. (2017, Sep 14). Patients diverted as NUH hit by power outage, Straits Time. Retrieved from http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/patients-diverted-as-nuh-hit-by-power-outage