HI-TECH HOUSE Exhibition 2006.
The event has been held for five years, and its organizers, like no one else, know how the Russian market of “intelligent buildings” is developing.
The exhibition presents all possible sections of facility automation: home automation (cottages, apartments, offices), automation and dispatch of large facilities, as well as related areas of the industry.
It would be unforgivable for our publication to miss such an event.
Therefore, we dedicate the November issue of the newsletter entirely to the Hi-Tech House-2006 exhibition.
Here, as always, there is a lot of new technical information, as well as a close-up of the exhibition with a list of all participating companies and a schedule of seminars.
By the way, many exhibitors posted information about new equipment in this issue of the newsletter.
I would like to share with readers my own point of view on the development of the domestic market of “intelligent buildings”, since I myself have been dealing with this issue for more than five years years. So, what is hidden behind the term “intelligent building”?
In the Russian building automation market, there has already been a practice of separating the concepts: “smart home” and “intelligent building” (IB).
The first refers to small automation objects — house, apartment, office.
“IZ” refers to residential and commercial real estate with much larger volumes and more serious automation tasks.
But no one in the world has yet developed a system of criteria that would allow one to classify and evaluate a particular building as “intelligent.”
Therefore, we can talk not about “intelligent” buildings, but about highly automated ones.
In modern buildings (mainly in commercial real estate), all engineering systems can be divided into three main groups:
– mechanical systems: building management systems, air conditioning systems (HVAC), energy supply systems and lighting, SCS, transport systems, etc.;
– security systems: security and fire alarms, video surveillance, fire extinguishing system and access control;
– IT systems: telephony, Internet access, LAN, server equipment, etc.
In most cases, the set of these engineering systems and equipment is the same. The main difference is how these systems were integrated and what benefits the building owner received.
Today we can state that the Russian IZ market is developing in proportion to the overall pace of building construction.
Among the main segments, we can highlight those where highly automated facilities are most common: office buildings, residential buildings, shopping and entertainment complexes, hotels, sports facilities.
You can try to evaluate the market for building automation systems by calculating the volumes in the main segments its equipment: controllers, sensors, actuators, valves.
According to experts, the volume of the Russian market at the end of 2005 amounted to 177 million euros per year in retail prices for equipment with a growth trend
20–25% annually.
The most common example of investment in high-tech buildings is office buildings.
When constructing such an object, as a rule, its future owner is already known in advance, who, even at the design stage, begins to care about the future operation of the object and would like to have “intelligent” systems and equipment in the building that will help save his money in the future by reducing operating costs.
But, unfortunately, there are much fewer examples of this approach in the construction of residential buildings.
The Russian building automation market, like other foreign markets, is developing towards open technologies and protocols.
It can be stated that today the most popular technologies for building automation are: BACnet, KNX and LonWorks.
And this is the choice of investors/customers who want their buildings not to be “tied” to any one equipment manufacturer, and to always have the opportunity to choose equipment and services from different vendors.
It is pleasant to note that all three technologies were presented at the Hi-Tech House-2006 exhibition.
The main difficulties in developing the IZ market in Russia are associated with timely and correct informing investment, construction and development companies about Russian and international experience in the construction of high-tech buildings.
How much does the construction budget of a facility increase when implementing the IZ concept, what is the payback period for the project?
These are the questions that primarily concern investment and construction companies.
If we summarize the opinions of Russian experts, we can highlight the most frequently mentioned values: construction estimates may increase by 10–15%, investments in “smart” technologies will be “repaid” in three to five years.
If we take into account the rate at which energy prices are rising in our country, the wages of service personnel are rising, and the cost of renting and purchasing real estate is rising, then we can assume that these values are similar to the truth.
Between manufacturers equipment, system integrators and customers need closer contact, which would intensify the business promotion of all market participants. This is precisely the goal that the Association for Building Automation BIG-RU sets for itself.
And I would like to repeat: the opinion of readers is very important to us. We would like to take into account your wishes and reflect on the pages of the newsletter those issues that really interest you. Write to: golovin@bacnet.ru
Andrey Golovin
editor-in-chief