Energy and internal environment management information systems and methods for buildings and campuses

Abstract

An elective and private incrementally deployed, incrementally modifiable, relatively inexpensive building information system that provides for a range of energy and environmental capabilities including room and building environment sensing (one or more of temperature, humidity, air quality, etc.), statistical processing software, modeling software, analysis software, information visualization software, decision support software, data logging, storage and recall, control arrangements, and interfacing with existing building systems (HVAC, solar, valves, power systems, etc.), external information systems and networks is disclosed. The invention can be used for various purposes including trial deployment of equipment and software; exploratory or special-purpose information gathering; analysis, modeling, or simulation of current, past, or ongoing energy usage, loss, or waste as well as air temperature and quality distributions, impacts of changes to a building, facilities, policies, or operations; design of optimal control for building operation.

I claim: 
     
         1 . A method for implementing a building information system, the method comprising:
 evolving the building information system incrementally through a sequence of developmental stages over a period of time, the stages at least including:
 a trial deployment stage including trial deployment of:
 at least a first plurality of sensors distributed within an interior of a building, 
 at least a second plurality of sensors on the exterior of the building, 
 at least one network for transporting measurement data produced by at least by the first and second pluralities of sensors, and 
 one or more software systems; 
 
 an analysis stage including deploying data analysis software for analysis of one or more building quality factors, the building quality factors at least including building energy usage, building energy loss, building air temperature, and building air quality; 
 wherein the analysis stage utilizes the measurement data produced by at least by the first and second pluralities of sensors. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises a data modeling stage deploying data modeling software for modeling of impacts on the building quality factors of potential changes to the building. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein the building quality factors further include the influence of external environment quality. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the data modeling stage further comprises modeling at least one of: air flow models, energy usage models, energy systems models, heat-transport models, heat-flux propagation models, air quality models and human health models. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising: enabling information flow among any two or more of: real-time measurement data produced by at least by the first and second pluralities of sensors, stored past measurement data, statistical processing software, the data analysis software, the data modeling software, the simulation software, decision support software, external systems, system-internal databases, building-internal databases, campus databases, cloud-based databases, and outside networks. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 3 , the data modeling stage further deploying that data modeling software for modeling of impacts of potential changes to policy and operating procedure. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 3 , the simulation stage further deploying simulation software for simulating of impacts of potential changes to policy and operating procedure changes. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 3 , the stages further including a decision support stage for deploying a decision support software system for receiving as inputs one or more of: the measurement data, stored past measurement data, and one or more decision policies, and for providing as output for display on a display and operations console. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the decision support software system is a multiple criterion decision support system. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 8 , further comprising: enabling one or more of: search, selective retrieval, review, presentation, combination with one another, and comparison with one another, of one or more of: real-time measurement data, statistically processed data, retrieved historical data, output of variable-policy control systems, output of data modeling software, output of data analysis software, output of simulation software, and output of decision support software system. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises a simulation stage deploying simulation software for simulating of the impacts on the building quality factors of potential changes to the building. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the building quality factors further include the influence of external environment quality. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises a design stage for design of the building information system. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method is used to design an automatic control system for at least one aspect of operation of the building 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method is used to design a control policy for used by an automatic control system associated with at least one aspect of operation of the building