inteliGlas Transforms USDA Research Facility in Marshfield, WI

BACKGROUND

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) operates 95 research laboratories nationwide. The labs work to improve food quality, increase agricultural productivity, and develop more sustainable farming practices. To protect the health and safety of the staff, and the integrity of their research, these facilities require tightly-controlled environments. In addition, the GSA and USDA are increasingly focused on reducing waste in their buildings and operations.

THE CHALLENGE

The upgrade in 2017 of a 2008 Tridium Niagara JACE controller led to years of chronic system failures.

The most serious problem was unstable static air pressure in the building, which affected the occupants in several ways:

  • Lab doors slammed shut which disrupted their work and created the potential for serious injuries.
  • Loss of Air flowin the laboratory fume hoods, which risked:
    • Contaminating their experiments and potentially losing days/weeks of work.
    • Exposing the staff to the potentially dangerous materials in the hoods.

Next, the outdated BMS software limited the performance of the heating and cooling system (HVAC):

  • The lack of Scheduling led to the continuous operation of the systems, which wasted energy and shortened the operating life of the equipment. 
  • The lack of Manual Overrides made it difficult for the staff to adjust the systems for the legendary extremes in the region’s weather.

Finally, the outdated BMS was running an old version of Microsoft Windows which created additional problems in terms of usability, cybersecurity, and physical safety:

  • Lost useful information and graphics about the operation of the HVAC system.
  • The building failed to meet the government’s requirement to use Microsoft Windows 11 for cybersecurity.
  • Lost air flow data and emergency hood locks for the seven laboratory fume hoods.

THE SOLUTION

GSA’s original RFP for this project required vendors to replace the malfunctioning Tridium Niagara JACE controller with another JACE unit. inteliGlas’ Director of Integration recognized this was suboptimal requirement because the building would be locked into the JACE’s current limitations with no potential for better performance.

inteliGlas proposed a solution that delivered greater value in many areas, while complying with GSA’s functional requirements:

  • Replaced the JACE controller with an inteliGlas Edge controller with cloud-computing capabilities.
  • Retained the existing JACE program logic to reduce disrupting the building’s operations.
  • Mapped hundreds of devices, with over two thousand data points, across the building’s systems.
  • Added read/write capabilities that enable advanced control of the systems.
  • Added capabilities for fault and leak detection to enable the building’s engineers to identify potential issues and minimize their impact on the building and its occupants.
  • Enabled remote real-time visualization of the building’s equipment.
  • Extended the system’s warranty and support coverage at a significantly lower cost.

The inteliGlas Solution added valuable benefits that the standard JACE replacement could never deliver and transformed the building from being unacceptably reactive to intelligently proactive.

RESULTS

With the inteliGlas platform in place the Marshfield facility achieved immediate performance improvements:

Stable Lab Environments

  • Autonomous, real-time control of the building systems maintains consistent conditions in spite of the region’s rapidly changing weather.
  • Intelligent scheduling aligns with the scientist’s schedules and workflows and learns from the human’s feedback.

Visibility & Usability

  • The intuitive inteliGlas Dashboard enables engineers and staff to monitor and create audit trails of the environmental conditions in each lab.
    • “Even our chief scientist can operate the building now!” — Building Engineer

Efficiency & Sustainability

  • Initial reduction of energy consumption by approximately 15% or $10,000 per year.
    • With full managment by inteliGlas the savings could approach 25%.
  • Achieved higher indoor air quality by returning control of the laboratory fume hood locks and alarms.
    • This is especially important because the lab works with acids.
  • Extended the operating life of the HVAC system by eliminating short cycling.

A FUTURE-READY PLATFORM

The Marshfield facility—and the entire ARS fleet of facilities—are positioned for continued improvements. inteliGlas enables a seamless expansion of capabilities to improve the building’s and occupant’s performance:

  • Analytics for Occupancy Dynamics.
  • Indoor air quality analytics and active management to ensure safety and regulatory compliance.
  • Analytics to drive increasing energy savings.
  • Additional sensors and monitoring to detect water leaks and track restroom use and cleaning.

Looking ahead, the Marshfield deployment of inteliGlas can serve as the foundation for expanding its benefits across other ARS facilities. inteliGlas can deliver the same local benefits while enabling building managers and engineers to remotely monitor and manage an entire portfolio of buildings distributed across the country.