How Smart is a Smart Building?

I've heard it said that a smart building is only as smart (or stupid) as the facility person running it. That may be glib, but there is a certain degree of truth to it.

With technology exploding in possibility but shrinking in price, facility executives have more smart, high-performance options than ever before. And one that's really gaining momentum is the opportunity to perform real-time energy monitoring in buildings.

But this possibility can be both a blessing and a curse. Facility executives enamored of the new whiz-bang smart meter technology and BAS-integration capabilities can find themselves in over their heads of they're not implementing these systems with not only a specific set of goals for the problems the technology will solve, but also a standardized, smartly considered process for analyzing and acting upon the data gathered.

As big of a buzzword as "smart building" is these days, "big data" is tossed around just as frequently. Without a plan in place, facility executives soon learn just how big “big data” can be. Indeed, too much data — or data that's un-analyze-able — is just as bad (if not worse) than no data at all.

So if facility executive are planning to take advantage of all the benefits of real-time energy monitoring (most notably, reducing energy use), be sure to understand just what this entails.

As always, I'm interested to hear from you. What strategies have you found to be most successful in handling big data in your facilities?

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