KNX Installation of the Year 2008

Durable Technologies' business partner Building Evolution Ltd recently won the KNX Installation of the Year 2008 award for their Old Courthouse installation in Douglas, Isle of Man. Building Evolution Ltd chose the Durable Technologies KNX certified DLC1000 Lighting Control Module and DLS1000 Sensor Heads as part of the KNX installation.

Background

The Old Courthouse in Douglas is a landmark building on the Isle of Man. Located in Athol Street, seen as the financial heart of the Isle of Man, the owners wanted to restore the building and set a new standard for office accommodation on the island.

While the standard of design and build quality was of high importance for the owners so was the building services technology that went into it. They needed a building that could be easily adapted to meet the needs of tenants while providing the ability for energy saving and other advantages that modern technology could offer.  

KNX was the owners preferred system as it offered flexibility and energy saving plus easily integrate with and control various building services. 

The KNX Design

The Old Courthouse provides approximately 28,000 ft² consisting of three floors of offices, two further floors reserved for a restaurant and night club, a basement car park and roof terrace. 

Some of the main factors considered in the design were:

• to enable energy saving where possible;
• to design an installation that provided maximum flexibility and adaptability of the office spaces for the lifetime of the building;
• to ensure ease and speed of installation for electrical contractors;
• to meet the monitoring and supervisor requirements of a facilities manager;
• to integrate the KNX with the Daikin VRV system;
• to ensure the capacity of the system would not be compromised now or in the future.

The system consists of a KNX line for each level of the building which is connected via KNX IP Routers to a dedicated LAN for the main line. There is also an interface with the buildings Daikin VRV HVAC system which is achieved by the Daikin BACnet gateway and an Intesis KNX BACnet IP Client, this because Daikin do not yet have a direct KNX Gateway. There is also an interface with the Trend ventilation system achieved with switching actuators and binary input. 

There is a KNX visualization PC using Jung Facility Pilot for use of the facilities manager which is used for: 

• monitoring the operating conditions of all lighting including lamp failure;
• possible monitoring and control of the Daikin VRV system including fault alarms;
• monitoring of the lift alarms in parallel with lift companies own remote alarm system;
• monitoring of fire panel faults; 
• monitoring of ventilation system fault alarms from the Trend system;
• provision of a number 365 day time programs for controlling landlords lighting and electric heaters;
• remote reading of tenant sub (KNX) electricity meters for billing purposes.

At base build the main office floors were designed as open plan, however as it was likely that once tenants were found these areas would be broken up further into separate offices suites, the cabling infrastructure needed to be as adaptable as possible. For this reason Building Evolution specified the Wieland gesis flat cabling system for installation above the ceiling grid. This provided a seven core flat cable which allows for three phase power, in this case used for lighting, HVAC and general ceiling power, e.g. for televisions and projectors and two core KNX bus all within the same cable. 

Along with this, the new DLC1000 lighting controller from Durable Technologies was chosen as it is well suited for the task plus it also utilises the Wieland sockets for an easy “plug and play” installation.  

On each of the three main office levels there is a Jung FP701 Touch Panel which provides control of HVAC and lights for tenants plus a facility for their own locally controlled time programs if required.

when tenant fitted-out levels two and three the open plan offices were spilt up and further control was added for lighting and HVAC. This was either with push buttons or movement/ presence detection depending upon tenants requirements. In some cases this meant using two channel presence detection for lighting and HVAC where HVAC is switched between a comfort and a set back energy efficiency mode.

In order to keep in with the overall high quality feel of the building, where required, stainless steel push buttons and frames were used throughout the offices.

Lighting Control

Lighting in the landlord areas i.e. the main entrance, staircase, landings, car park, store rooms and WCs are controlled by a combination of time clocks and movement / presence detection. In two smaller landlord offices absence detection has been used. Movement and presence detectors are provided by the Durable Technologies DLS1000 Sensor Head and a combination of other devices from ABB, Jung and Theben.

Emergency light testing is also carried out through the KNX system by key switches connected to binary inputs. The DLC1000 Lighting Control Module provides the emergency test function internal on command.

In the basement car park lights are controlled by a combination of movement detection and time clock. To reduce energy usage lights are divided up into three switched circuits where during working hours if no movement is detected only one group lights is held on, equivalent to emergency level lighting. This is so the car park is not in total darkness if someone is sat in their car for a period of time and also if there is a delay in detecting them once they step out of the car. Once movement is detected then all lights are switched on. Once movement is no longer detected then two groups of lights turn off separately over a selected period of time leaving just one group of lights switched on as before. 

Outside of working hours all lights go off when no movement is detected. To equalise lamp life the group of lights that is held on is rotated once a week. The logic controlling these functions in the car park is provided by a Siemens Logo Unit along with its KNX interface module along with ABB Busch Watchdog movement sensors.  

All tenant sub electricity metering is carried out with the ABB range of three and single phase meters with their KNX interface module for easy communication of meter readings to the Facility PC.

Summary 

The Old Court House project is a multi-faceted project embracing many different KNX products, including those from Durable Technologies, and exploiting the benefits of BACnet and Internet Protocol technology.

Building Evolution's Managing Director Nigel Stafford say: "This has been an interesting and challenging project and much experience has been gained. However, an important part of the success of this project is down the truly excellent support and advice provided by all suppliers for which I am very grateful."