Dubai, UAE, 8 August 2018: An Energy Management System (EMS) plays a vital role in optimising equipment performance, said Adnan Sharafi, Executive Director, Gerab Energy Systems, gleaning from the company’s latest projects. Highlighting its features, Sharafi said the strong analytics back-end of EMS helps operators monitor energy use throughout the building, “floor by floor and equipment by equipment”, to better analyse overall energy consumption. The data, Sharafi said, is in real-time and archived to provide historical context. Additionally, he said, it is possible to configure alarms and limits according to different parameters, based on the specific elements operators want to measure. Janis Strelits-Strele, Business Development Manager, Gerab Energy Systems, said that analysing the captured data allows them to fine-tune the system in order to optimise equipment performance and deliver higher efficiencies. Sharafi added that EMS is also being used to monitor the performance of retrofit projects where ‘Smart Cooling’ is applied for chillers.

Sharafi said that the company has a number of retrofit projects in the pipeline with various ESCOs and clients placing heavy emphasis on reducing the energy burden of HVAC systems, given that 70% of the consumption of buildings in the United Arab Emirates goes to cooling, with lighting, pumps and other equipment responsible for only 18-20%. “There are many ways to skin a cat,” Sharafi said, “and for energy reduction there are many solutions. We do lighting, monitoring, we provide technology in different areas, such as motor controls. But the bulk of the energy demand is on the HVAC. So, whatever solutions and technology we provide, our focus will always be on this part. We are in the hot part of the world and there will always be demand for HVAC and technologies come in from time to time. We look at what is best and available.”

Hannah Jo Uy is Assistant Editor at Climate Control Middle East magazine. She may be contacted at hannah@cpi-industry.com