The status of BEMS

The various levels of control in a building energy management system (BEMS), and the history of such systems´ development, are outlined. It is shown that, besides controlling plant items, BEMS go some way towards meeting resource management requirements and also towards the intermediate goal of global optimisation, though this is achieved mainly at the stage of initial system design. There remains scope at the global optimisation level for the enhancement of the functionality of the central computer, and it is suggested that this can be achieved by the use of expert systems