A lot of the work we're focusing on now is preparing the foundation for the new Building and Energy Control Centre, based on the BACnet protocol. Contracted system integrators, software developers and installation technicians are all involved in this process. When it's complete, we'll be able to centrally gather detailed information about the performance of air-conditioning (chillers, boilers and fans etc), internal and external lighting, electricity, natural gas and water (potable and bore) consumption, fire services, lifts and the swimming pool cogeneration system. That information will be displayed on standard computer screens, in the form of trend graphs, time schedules and detailed flow diagrams showing temperatures, flow rates and pressures.

By operating your PC through the university's campus wide network of optical fibre cables or via a web browser, you will be able to for example, view or print energy or water consumption profiles for particular buildings, or simply adjust the operating times of your air-conditioning or lighting.

Users will also be able to monitor the success of the university's response to the Greenhouse Challenge in terms of CO_2e emissions saved. Commercial tenants will have access to their billing history for electricity, gas or water consumption.

In the meantime, we still record, chart and report our major consumption areas using an older, manual input computer based system. And we continue to watch for, and react to opportunities to improve efficiencies and reduce costs.