The new MOE Building which opened in year 2000 will help the Singapore Ministry of Education take a giant step towards attaining its vision of creating a strong IT culture in schools.
The MOE Building is well endowed with sophisticated IT training facilities and IT infrastructure including a state-of-the-art Intelligent Building Management System (IBMS) that embraces openness in every respect: hardware, communication networks and operating system platform.
The IBMS, designed, installed and commissioned by CNA , is the first truly open IBMS in Singapore that embraces the widely accepted industry standard LONworks technology across the entire building.
One distinctive characteristic of the IBMS at the MOE Building is its open, flexible and fully scalable architecture that allows the owner the flexibility to choose and seamlessly combine the best products, systems, controls and services with the optimum price/performance from a variety of vendors into a tailor-made, future safe, building system.
The entire IBMS is linked with a high-speed 100MB Ethernet/TCP/IP network and has high level interface to a myriad of systems including: Fire Alarm System, Card Access System, Lighting System, Lifts, Telelifts and Chillers. The System controls and monitors a total of 8,000 points.
A unique feature of the IBMS is its link to the entire Ministry of Education Office Automation Network . The Office Automation Network spans across all schools in Singapore . Teachers and principals are able to make booking for facilities at the MOE Building from their schools. The Facilities Booking System is integrated with the IBMS to ensure that the card access system will be energized only by authorized users during the periods of time the facilities have been booked.
The IBMS has many energy-saving and comfort-enhancement features. The CNA chiller control system uses advanced control algorithm to optimize the chiller system. The controllers perform high-speed calculations of the energy usage, mechanical efficiency of chiller plant equipment and other abstractions to optimize chiller plant operation and maximize energy savings.
Carbon dioxide (CO2 ) and carbon monoxide (CO) monitors are installed at air handling units and basement car parks to conserve energy and provide adequate ventilation. Radiant heat sensors installed at perimeter zones, help to monitor radiant heat level. When the radiant heat level is high, due to the heated windows from the sun, more cool air is provided to keep the occupants comfortable. But when the radiant heat level is low, less cool air is provided, to conserve energy.
Lighting energy is conserved through extensive use of occupancy sensors in rooms. For other areas, the IBMS dims down the lighting level to 50% after 7.00 p.m. to alert staff that the lights will completely go off in half an hour's time. Should the staff need to stay longer, time extension of the lighting can be provided by activating a time extension switch.
With such a comprehensive range of energy programmes, it was no surprise that the MOE Building won the First Runner-Up ASEAN Energy Efficiency Award in 2002.
Maintenance and operation staff find the system very useful by not having to be desk- bound at the IBMS Central Control Room all the time. The IBMS has an elaborate auto-paging system which pages the maintenance and operation staff when faults or abnormal conditions are detected in any of the M&E systems. The staff can respond very quickly to the paged-out calls via their mobile phones, even if they are away from the building.
The MOE Building also boasts other unique attributes including underfloor delivery of air conditioning air for personalized comfort, telelifts for the transporting documents around the building and a centralized vacuum system for destruction of unwanted confidential documents.
The Ministry of Education is already embarking on the next phase of expansion of building infrastructure. It is comforting to them to know that they have wisely chosen an open, flexible, scalable and interoperable Intelligent Building Management System from CNA. This will give them the freedom and flexibility of choice to meet ever-evolving building system needs.
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