Smart building technologies, such as building automation systems, allow buildings to be monitored and controlled to ensure safety, comfort and efficiency. These systems connect mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems to optimize performance. The article discusses examples of smart building technologies being used in Alaska, including lighting controls, HVAC systems and building automation systems at the University of Alaska Fairbanks that integrate and monitor different building functions.

1. 30 Alaska Business Monthly | July 2015www.akbizmag.com
CONSTRUCTION
Before the emergence of digital
controls and smart building
technologies, most buildings
controlled the HVAC system—heating,
ventilation, and air conditioning within
the building—through a pneumatic or
air-based control system. Most existing
buildings still use pneumatic controls,
limiting the opportunities to monitor
the other systems of the building and of-
ten burning more energy in the process.
Smart building technologies, typical-
ly controlled by a building automation
system, link the mechanical, electrical,
and plumbing systems of the building
and give the operator a window into the
inner workings of nearly all the systems
that influence a building’s operations.
Through smart build-
ing technologies, opera-
tors are equipped to ensure
safety, provide comfort, and
especially important to Alaskans—
monitor efficiency.
Paper to Operator
Some companies know what they want
in an automated control system to op-
erate their buildings. Sometimes that
is not always the case. Some people
just want their buildings to keep them
comfortable without having to think
too much about it. Mark Frischkorn,
principal mechanical engineer at RSA
Engineering, Inc., is part of
an engineering firm that has tak-
en the role of designing many smart
systems for schools and businesses in
Alaska. Recently RSA Engineering de-
signed the mechanical systems of the
West Anchorage High School addition
under the architects Kumin and Asso-
ciates. The project is currently under
construction by Cornerstone General
Contractors.
Building
Automation
Techniques
Deployed
in Alaska
By Russ Slaten
Smart Building
Technologies
Smart Building
Technologies
Smart Building
Technologies

2. www.akbizmag.com July 2015 | Alaska Business Monthly 31
Mechanical systems of the West Anchorage High
School addition are tied into the school’s building
automation system. On the left, the outside air
louver is outlined in red stripes, and the air
handler is dark grey with green ducts, it
distributes air (including heating and
cooling) throughout the building. Floor
drains are designated in pink, and
return air grilles are designated
in blue.
Rendering courtesy of
RSA Engineering, Inc. and
Kumin and Associates, Inc.
Frischkorn says the contractors will
install the system, complete the project,
and hand it over to the building owner.
The contractor responsible for the au-
tomation control system provides the
owner an Operations and Maintenance
manual detailing the systems installed
for that particular project.
“The contractor is then supposed
to train [the building operator] on the
systems and say, ‘Here is what you have
to know, here’s how it’s supposed to
work,’” Frischkorn says.
Due to the com-
plexity of the sys-
tems involved, most
building control
suppliers offer supplemental
training and even classes at the
factory for building operators
that really want to know their sys-
tems and operate them to optimal effi-
ciency. They also offer service contracts
for the people that want their systems
to work without having to worry about
the details.
Most construction contracts have a
one-year warranty, and if something
doesn’t work, the contractor would have
to come back and fix it, Frischkorn says.
This also helps with the learning process
for the building operator as they learn
how their building reacts to the seasons.
“Here lately commissioning is the
latest and greatest thing now. They usu-

3. 32 Alaska Business Monthly | July 2015www.akbizmag.com
Further detail of the
mechanical systems of the
West Anchorage High School
addition and it’s connection into the
school’s building automation system.
Rendering courtesy of RSA Engineering, Inc. and Kumin and Associates, Inc.

4. www.akbizmag.com July 2015 | Alaska Business Monthly 33

5. 34 Alaska Business Monthly | July 2015www.akbizmag.com
ally hire an engineer to commission the
building, which essentially means to
turn everything on and walk it through
all of the things it’s supposed to be do-
ing and make sure it does in fact do all
of those things,” Frischkorn says.
RSAofferscommissioningasaservice,
and in 2013 Frischkorn commissioned
the UAF Margaret Murie Building.
“The whole commissioning process
can be rather sophisticated. It took me a
week to check every point in that build-
ing to make sure it was doing what it
was supposed to be doing. I didn’t get it
all; I got all the major ones, because that
is a very big, very sophisticated build-
ing,” Frischkorn says.
Even though the mechanical and
control contractors on that project were
very conscientious, there were still a
fair amount of adjustments to be made
to get everything working just right.
The commissioning agent provides a
second set of eyes and the time to study
the systems that helps ensure every-
thing gets adequately tested before be-
ing turned over to the owner.
Before the process of installing and
utilizingsmartbuildingtechnologies,be-
cause of its innate complexity, a building
owner must first realize the benefits of
designing with or converting to a build-
ing automation system. Some buildings
benefit more from high levels of technol-
ogy than others, Frischkorn says.
Buildings must be viewed on a case-
by-case basis before making the first
steps toward reducing energy use and
being smart, says Jack Hébert, founder
and CEO of the The Cold Climate Hous-
ing Research Center (CCHRC).
“Every building in itself has a personal-
ity,” says Hébert. “The personality is re-
flected by the way it was built, who built
it, when it was built, the kinds of systems
that were put in it at that particular time,
the behavior of the people that use the
building, and the education of the opera-
tors of the building. When addressing en-
ergy efficiency and being smarter, every
building has a story of its own.”
Applied Research
CCHRC in Fairbanks is a nonprofit,
industry-based corporation that dem-
onstrates smart building technolo-
gies, among other building efficiencies,
through statewide research. Hébert
says it utilizes product development
and testing for research and works with
homeowners and building managers to
incorporate smart building technolo-
gies and other efficiencies in buildings
throughout the state.
CCHRC’s facility in Fairbanks utiliz-
es a Siemens Apogee system to monitor
and control building functions and pro-
vide data for researchers. As an applied
research facility, CCHRC demonstrates
its research in its use.
“If you can’t feel it, touch it, and see
how it performs, if you’re just doing
a study, it’s just one more study on a
shelf,” Hébert says. “What really has an
impact is being able to show folks what’s
been done. Let them kick the tires.”
The research facility is equipped with
more than 1,200 sensors to study tech-
niques and technologies for use in cold
climates.
“In our world, what we call ‘smart
technologies’aretechnologiesthatareef-
fective without being overly complex, so
they can be affordable and regular folks
can operate them. Building technologies
on commercial buildings can get quite
complex, but sometimes they have to be

6. www.akbizmag.com July 2015 | Alaska Business Monthly 35
that way in order to achieve efficiency. In
any case, the technologies should com-
plement the systems in the building in a
way that reduces the amount of energy
that’s used,” Hébert says.
Hébert points to the use of outdoor sen-
sors in radiant floor heating as a smart
technology.Outdoorsensorsreadthetem-
perature of ambient air outside the build-
ing and adjust the temperature of fluids
in the heating system to maximize effi-
ciency in the transfer of heat to the build-
ing. If the outside temperature drops, the
temperature of water going through the
radiant floor system rises to more effec-
tively transfer heat, but runs at the lowest
temperature needed to satisfy the heating
needs of the user. Radiant floor heating is
operated by computer-controlled valves
that interface with the main system to
optimize efficiency. At the CCHRC facility
the Siemens Apogee system adjusts boiler
operation times and temperatures based
on outside temperature.
The aspect of lighting plays a ma-
jor role in smart building technologies
in commercial buildings, Hébert says.
Smart technologies sense the amount
of ambient light received through win-
dows. The building adjusts the lumens—
the amount of visible light—to balance
the level of lighting necessary for the
building’s occupants without wasting
energy. Along with those controls are
occupant sensors that tell the system if
a person is in the room and whether the
room should be lit. The amount of lu-
mens a light should produce depends on
the amount of natural light in the room.
The HVAC system is most often con-
nected to the electronic smart building
controls. Hébert says indoor air quality
is a major issue in commercial build-
ings. Occupancy sensors read the num-
ber of people in the room by the amount
of carbon dioxide produced from
breathing and adjusts to ventilate fresh
air for that number of occupants. If
there are no occupants in the room, the
advanced system only ventilates to keep
a minimum air change going through
the building to promote efficiency.
Because Alaska is relatively cold
throughout most of the year, buildings
in the state are more equipped to handle
heating rather than air conditioning
needs. One way of keeping air quality
high while keeping the building heated
is the use of heat recovery ventilation,
Hébert says. The heat leaving the build-
ing that would have been lost to the at-
mosphere preheats the cold, exterior air
coming into the building, creating an
interchange between the stale, warm air
and incoming fresh air. If the exterior
temperature is too cold for heat recovery,
the system adds heat to the airstream to
ensure the occupants are comfortable.
“One of the biggest expenses of oper-
ating a commercial building in cold en-
vironments is the number of air chang-
es that occur, so you are constantly
changing the air inside a building, and
unless you have smart controls or use
heat recovery of stale air, it can be a tre-
mendous energy cost just ventilating a
commercial building,” Hébert says.
Hébert says the controls of a particu-
lar system should complement the ap-
pliance, whether it is lighting, heating,
or ventilation. The system shouldn’t
be too complex for the appliance or the
user. The Siemens Apogee system in the
research facility allows the operator to
adjust indoor temperatures and provide
dataonfuelusageandenergygeneration.
The smart building system at the
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7. 36 Alaska Business Monthly | July 2015www.akbizmag.com
CCHRC facility is equipped with con-
trollers that transmit and receive infor-
mation through the field level network.
Automated Building Controls
Anchorage-based AMC Engineers spe-
cializes in the design of mechanical,
electrical, and telecommunications for
commercial and institutional facili-
ties utilizing smart building technolo-
gies. The firm’s clients include federal,
state, municipal, and private businesses
throughout Alaska.
“Our systems ‘breathe life’ into a fa-
cility. We measure outside air tempera-
ture, relative humidity, and the systems
alwaysbringfreshairinside.Allofthose
dynamics are constantly managed by
the building automation system,” says
Dave Shumway, principal mechanical
engineer at AMC Engineers.
For the most part a smart building
controls itself, and the occupant relies on
automated systems to set a comfortable
environment, Shumway says. As the oc-
cupantentersaroom,thelightsfliponau-
tomatically. After the occupant leaves the
lights are set to a time delay that turns off
the lights to save energy. The use of LED
lights further aids in energy efficiency.
“InAlaska,we’rereallyconcernedabout
energy. It gets really cold here, so we try to
limit the amount of outside air entering a
building,”Shumwaysays.“You’rerequired
to bring in a certain amount of outside air
just to meet indoor air quality standards,
so we design our buildings to provide that
amount of air into the building.”
AMC Engineers is working on several
large scale projects including the new
University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)
Engineering Facility currently under
construction. The $118.1 million project
is a six floor, 119,000-square-foot build-
ing. Shumway says the UAF Engineer-
ing Building features an “engineering
on display” concept.
“Students and visitors will be able
to view the actual inner workings of
the building automation and control
system on large LED display monitors
located throughout the facility. Dis-
plays will include HVAC and electrical
system operation, energy consump-
tion monitoring, photovoltaic panel
power generation rate, building struc-
tural component stress, and strain and
building ‘stack effect,’” Shumway says.
Interconnected Systems
Akeyadvantageofusingsmartbuilding
technology is that large, complex build-
ings can be continuously monitored for
scheduled maintenance and immediate
system fault identification in the event
of a system component failure.
“The building automation system
monitors many aspects of the build-
ing,” Shumway says. “So if there is a
problem, the building automation sys-
tem can send a message to the mainte-
nance staff so they can correct the prob-
“It turns out to be a huge
advantage for the university as
new buildings come online and
as we see how the emerging
technologies can be used. We
can then reverse engineer
it back into old buildings to
help with things like energy
reduction and safety.”
—Cameron Wohlford
Senior Project Manager, UAF
Special Olympics Alaska Training Facility

8. www.akbizmag.com July 2015 | Alaska Business Monthly 37
lem before it becomes worse.”
At UAF, individual campus building
automation and control systems are de-
signed to “speak” to one another, each
programmed with control strategies that
have been standardized to fit the specific
needs of the university. Operators at the
university have established relationships
with consulting engineers to assist in
achieving the university’s smart build-
ing goals, unlike some businesses that
simply look to the design engineer for a
smart building systems approach.
“UAF has a strict set of design guide-
lines for our mechanical and electrical
systems. So much so that we’re actually
driving the design of the consultants; the
reason being we know what works in our
extremeclimate,andwewantitstandard-
ized for our maintenance technicians to
occasionally fix and repair the buildings
when issues arise. We utilize the horse-
powerofourconsultantstolookatsystem
sizing, system capacity, ensuring that our
systems are utilizing our energy wisely
because it is so expensive to heat and cool
a building in Fairbanks,” says Cameron
Wohlford,seniorprojectmanageratUAF.
Not only does UAF drive the design
side of its building controls, it also
drives the technology side through its
relationship with Siemens. Wohlford
says the university is always looking for
the latest and greatest when it comes
to energy reduction, user comfort, and
other priorities.
“It comes down to all three parties
[operator, engineer, and technician]
leading the design together. I think it
turns out well,” Wohlford says.
UAF connects the lighting, HVAC,
security, fire alarms, and various sys-
tems of all its new buildings through
the Siemens automated building system.
Wohlford says the advantage of inter-
connected systems is a wholesale look at
building assets and the ability to moni-
tor operations from a global standpoint.
“It turns out to be a huge advantage
for the university as new buildings come
online and as we see how the emerging
technologiescanbeused,”Wohlfordsays.
“Wecanthenreverseengineeritbackinto
old buildings to help with things like en-
ergy reduction and safety.” R
Russ Slaten is an Associate Editor
at Alaska Business Monthly.