JISC Progress Report Template - Full

JISC Progress Report Template - Full Project Identifier Project Title Project Hashtag Project Information To be completed by JISC U-CARE: Universities Collaborative Approach to Reducing Energy Start Date 01/07/11 End Date 30/06/12 Lead Institution Project Director Project Manager Contact email Partner Institutions Project Webpage URL Programme Name Programme Manager University of Strathclyde Dr Stuart Brough, Director of Information Services (while awaiting a replacement Director of Estates) Emma McCulloch e.mcculloch@strath.ac.uk Greening ICT Rob Bristow Document Information Author(s) Emma McCulloch Project Role(s) Project Manager Reporting Period From 01-07-2011 to 31-12-2012 Date 23-12-2011 Filename UCAREProgressReport.doc URL If this report is on your project web site Access X Project and JISC internal General dissemination Document History Version Date Comments 1.0 23-12-2011 Draft for circulation to project team 1.1 17-01-2012 Changes by EM Page 1

Table of Contents NB: This table of contents auto-populates - to update the table of contents place cursor in the table of contents, right-click your mouse, click update field, select appropriate option Section One: Summary... 3 Section Two: Activities and Progress... 3 Section Three: Institutional & Project Partner Issues... 4 Section Four: Outputs and Deliverables... 5 Section Five: Outcomes and Lessons Learned... 5 Section Six: Evaluation... 5 Section Seven: Dissemination... 5 Section Eight: Risks, Issues and Challenges... 5 Section Nine: Collaboration and Support... 6 Section Ten: Financial Statement... 6 Section Eleven: Next Steps... 6 Page 2

Section One: Summary The U-CARE project has installed appropriate metering within a computer lab and a server room at the University of Strathclyde. Data on energy consumption, CO2 emission and room temperature are being collected and trended to provide benchmark figures within these facilities. In parallel, occupancy data for the lab environment is being collected and analysed. A software application is being developed to parse the raw data collected, which will output graphical information showing occupancy figures at selected times. The application is being designed to be scalable so that any lab within the Estate can be set up as a parameter, as can any time period for which we hold data (this is available over several years). This means that we can study the patterns of lab usage longitudinally and advise on heating and cooling cycles based on this. Findings are likely to lead to recommendations on building optimisation and should feed into mobile applications made available to students seeking lab facilities. A questionnaire has been issued to users of the computer lab being metered to ensure that research findings will not compromise their learning experience or comfort level. Any dissatisfaction with lab facilities must be addressed and project outcomes should not lead to any reduction in the quality of service or facilities provided within the institution. A software application is being scoped, which will inform recommended heating and cooling cycles based on energy consumption, room temperature and occupancy figures over time. It is desirable for such an application to interface directly with existing heating and cooling equipment. To this end, initial research is underway into the feasibility of an application being able to interface with the control system of the existing heating/cooling equipment (Toshiba models). Section Two: Activities and Progress WP1 Establish benchmark energy consumption levels, before and after technical development Trending of electrical data suffered significant delay for two reasons: Within the server room environment, the meter gathering data was not configured for our needs and the schematic diagrams were inaccurate and had to be reviewed with Honeywell (the Building Management System manufacturer). Data for the computer lab only became available in early December 2011 due to the lack of appropriate equipment. Specialist equipment for the investigative site had to be procured (and budget had to be identified for this). Further delay arose from the discovery that the chosen site s (James Weir 107) heating and cooling system was antiquated and so very unlikely to have the level of openness required for us to interoperate with its control system. Further research was undertaken and a new site proposed (Graham Hills 634). It then took time to install and configure the meters within the new site. The involvement of an Engineering Senior Lecturer and Student means that we have access to a greater pool of expertise than was previously the case. Paul Strachan and David Parkinson are skilled in researching heat gain within a given environment and will be contributing to the investigation of the server room in particular, to recommend ways in which temperatures could be made more stable and energy consumption could be reduced. WP2 Monitor facility usage, occupancy levels, user satisfaction Page 3

Questionnaire responses are being gathered using the online Survey Monkey tool. This work has been delayed as the survey was originally compiled and released to gather feedback from users of James Weir 107. Following a change to the site being investigated, at the beginning of December, the survey has since been reissued to reflect the new site. The response rate has been poor so far. Occupancy data has been gathered (and is ongoing) and the development of an analysis and presentation tool is nearing completion. The tool will take lab (site) and time period as inputs. The output will be a line graph showing occupancy levels within that particular lab over the chosen time period. Although scalable across the Estate, the project can compare the output for Graham Hills 634 from this tool with the energy consumption data for the same site. This will highlight periods where e.g. occupancy was low and energy consumption was high; occupancy was high and energy consumption was high etc. to identify areas for improvement in terms of energy (and cost) saving. WP3 Develop an application in line with requirements Two months behind schedule, development work of a prototype application to control heating/cooling cycles has not yet begun. This is due to delays in acquiring data and a change of lab site due to obsolete equipment. This will become the priority task in the new year. WP4 Project management Project governance has been affected by the retirement of the Director of Estates. His replacement is not due to start post until early 2012, meaning that we have not had a steer from Estates senior management. The Director of Information Services is temporarily fulfilling the Project Director s role until a replacement is in post early next year. The project has faced some set-backs which have resulted in the overall project timeline slipping by approximately several months. It became evident that considerably more commitment is required for this project than was anticipated at the time of bidding. To provide additional resourcing, U-CARE has been promoted to the Computer and Information Science (CIS) and Engineering departments at the University. Three CIS students are taking on elements of WP2 for their 5 th year group project, whilst a 4 th year Engineering student is undertaking much of the data analysis work involved in WP1, focusing on identifying improvements to the server room scenario. They are undertaking this work in close consultation with their academic supervisors and the U-CARE project team. Section Three: Institutional & Project Partner Issues As previously mentioned, the Project Director - the Director of Estates Services - took early retirement in early September 2011. Involvement of high profile service teams (including Estates and Information Services Infrastructure) has meant that pre-allocated time often has to be rescheduled e.g. management of unforeseen activity e.g. hardware failure takes priority over project meeting. This can prove difficult to manage. There were constraints on the server room planning at the design stage as the facility was accommodated within an existing building - wiring, ducts etc were already in place. Set timescales and budgets means that, although known, the most energy-efficient models were not implemented at the time of design. Page 4

A lack of resource and funding is likely to be available to effect change. Should the project recommend that it would be beneficial to e.g. change the position of the racks within the server room, actually making this change is unlikely to take place because of lack of resource. This is a disappointing situation and effectively comes back to lack of resourcing and the need for a longerterm strategy for continuous improvement. Section Four: Outputs and Deliverables The questionnaire issued to gather feedback on lab conditions from users of Graham Hills 634 is available at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9pkl9lj The data occupancy analysis tool is being developed and made available through bitbucket at https://bitbucket.org/sswindells/ucare/ Source code is currently in place and, once fully developed, Java Runtime requires to be installed in order to access the tool. Section Five: Outcomes and Lessons Learned Data logging and provision is not necessarily straightforward. Supplementary staff should always be in place to take over should staffing/resourcing become a project risk. In the current climate, this is not possible. Extensive restructuring has already taken place and is continuing, meaning that all staff are fully committed. Going down the route of entering a partnership with academic departments has been hugely beneficial. It is also providing an enhanced learning experience for the students involved. Section Six: Evaluation Evaluation of comfort levels in labs is underway via questionnaire. It is essential that we do not compromise users learning environments by recommending or causing uncomfortable temperatures in lab environments. We cannot implement cost-saving schemes at the ultimate expense of our customers. Evaluation of data logged has been undertaken, which highlighted some anomalous data due to e.g. erroneous schematic diagrams provided by Building Management System Manufacturers; wiring of voltage transducers. It has taken some time to configure equipment to ensure we are metering exactly what we want to meter. Section Seven: Dissemination JISC Programme meeting attended, Bristol, March 2011. Blog postings at http://ucare.jiscgreenict.org/ Announcement in University newsletter Questionnaire flyers distributed to students and monitor-based alerts to promote questionnaire at point of login. Contact made with project teams within the JISC programme. Attendance at Intelligent Buildings and Smart Estates, De Montfort University, Leicester, 28 th November 2011. Section Eight: Risks, Issues and Challenges Lack of availability of data relating to electrical usage. Although on-site, it has proven difficult to obtain the relevant information from the Building Management System. It is a proprietary system and issues with data gathering at the outset of the project were identified. Page 5

Problems with schematic diagrams for the server room site were identified and this had to be addressed with the Building Management System provider Honeywell. Calibration for the data from the server room also had to be revised by Honeywell. Estates then required to verify that the data trending on the Building Management System was correct and reconcile this with the electrical supply schematic before providing data to be used within the project. Within the second site chosen for investigation the Graham Hills computer lab no metering was taking place before the start of the project. This meant that a suitable data logger had to be procured, installed and configured. Data is being downloaded directly from the data logger for analysis, avoiding the need to interact with the Building Management System. Contrary to intention, it is now impossible for us to analyse a full year s worth of data within the timescale of the project. We know that the summer period over which data collection has not been possible is far quieter than periods within the academic year and so likely to be more scope for reducing energy consumption. There will be less demand on servers, fewer rooms may require heating as labs may be consolidated and so on. It is unfortunate that we will not now be able to pin-point potential savings here. We will, however make some recommendations relating to this period, as we have actual occupancy data logging machine usage within the lab environment over the summer period. Although we hold some questionnaire data from the survey designed to address comfort levels within this period, a change of investigative site has been made following the summer period. This means that data gathered is invalid; the questionnaire has been reissued for the new site. In the absence of data over the summer period for 2011, should the institution wish to maximise on the project findings, electricity usage data for the summer period 2012 could be analysed alongside occupancy data for the same period. This would require investment from infrastructure and estates teams but, in the project manager s opinion, would be an exercise well-worth undertaking. Lack of Estates based governance and availability of key staff has posed risks to the project. Additional resourcing has been sought to mitigate this. Section Nine: Collaboration and Support Findings from Heat and Light by Timetable. In particular, it is of interest to discover if the project found a specific pattern in terms of days/times where power consumption can be reduced. If so, how what levels of savings (in energy and financial terms) were made. Section Ten: Financial Statement Project budget submitted alongside this report. Section Eleven: Next Steps Analysis of data being logged in Graham Hills 634. Generation of outputs from analysis of data from Graham Hills server room, showing heat gains etc. Completion and release of the occupancy analyser tool. Testing of occupancy analyser tool to ensure it is scalable and transferable. Identifying potential areas and time period in which energy consumption can be reduced by creating an energy usage profile for the server room environment and by comparing energy consumption data with occupancy data for Graham Hills 634. Investigating control options within Toshiba heating/cooling units. Page 6

Developing a prototype tool that can take planned heating/cooling schedules and communicate this with the Toshiba units. Measuring any savings made (in terms of energy and financial cost). Checklist: Before you return this report: X Ensure that your project webpage on the JISC website is up to date and contains the correct information. Attach details of any required amendments to this report. Project webpages can be found from: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/projects.aspx X If there have been any changes to the original project plan and/or work packages, ensure that amended copies of the relevant sections of your project plan are attached to this report. Page 7