July/August 2020

34 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk July/August 2020 Energy, the Environment & Water Focus on: HVAC I ndoor farming and food processing plants are the perfect use case for BAS software. As more plants transition to implement IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) devices, they will need comprehensive BAS software to manage the many facets of food production, automation, energy, and quality management. Here are some of the ways that food production facilities are benefitting from BAS. Environmental monitoring To ensure crops are growing properly with optimum efficiency, the environment of your facility is of utmost importance for food production. The temperature, humidity levels, amount of light, and concentration of specific gases all factor into maintaining the growing crop or food quality. If the environment is not properly maintained, product quality is lost, and food safety becomes an issue. All of these factors can be managed automatically by BAS to ensure the environment maintains its integrity. BAS can monitor your HVAC to ensure proper temperature and airflow, plus control of humidity and gas concentrations where management of these parameters is required. Lighting can also be controlled to ensure that the appropriate level is maintained - something very important to indoor farming. A mushroom farm, for example, grows its products in a minimal amount of light. In order for the mushrooms to grow properly, they must also monitor the air and the concentration of gases. Ventilation is vital to the production and can be monitored with sensors and managed with BAS. The same is true for indoor or vertical farming, where there is a need for controlled-environment agriculture. Using wireless sensors and dashboard technology, helps optimize and automate the control of the environment in the building. Beyond monitoring current conditions, having an automated system that can provide a record of historical conditions and failures can be of huge benefit in preventing control failures and to uncovering quality issues. Removing human error Sometimes there are processes in the facility that require human intervention i.e re-setting building controls after a cleaning operation or changing modes in between different processes. Relying on operators to execute manual changes leaves a margin for error, particularly when operatives come off a long/early shift. By linking HVAC and process controls to BAS, the automation removes the human factor and lessens the risk. Management of energy For many building operators, the energy bill is the largest single expense. When most people think about smart buildings and building automation, they think of large office buildings or city centres. But Building Automation Systems (BAS) have applications far beyond that of the corporate office world. This software technology can be applied in any building with HVAC, IoT devices, security systems, lighting, refrigeration or energy management needs. Chris Irwin* reports. Optimising food production & manufacturing with building automation systems