Evolving Power Management For Today's Intelligent Buildings

- Srinivas Chebbi

The advances in technology are making building power management and electrical maintenance more efficient, there are new obstacles that come along with these improvements. For example, one of the biggest trends impacting power management in a facility is the growth of complex electrical networks that include distributed generation like solar, battery storage and backup generation, and voltage disturbances from harmonic emitting sources like variable frequency drives and LED lighting. In the past, every building was more or less designed in the same way from an electrical perspective with the main source of power coming directly from the electrical utility. Now, we have much more complex buildings that have different needs in terms of where they consume energy and also how they manage the different sources from where that energy is being distributed. This adds a layer of complexity for facility managers, because now they are not just a consumer of energy, but also a producer of energy, and have to manage those two different sources in parallel.