Automation Data as the Foundation for More Sustainable Buildings
21 June 2022
Building Automation Drives Efficiency and Innovation

Are sustainability, the energy transition and climate protection essential components of your company’s philosophy? The Wilo Group, one of the world’s leading providers of premium pumps and pump systems, uses “green solutions for a better climate” to put this philosophy into action, and constantly proves it with its products. One ambitious construction project, the innovative Wilopark facility, is tackling these issues head-on and achieving these goals. Building automation plays a key role in this project.

The Wilo Group, global leader in pumps and pump systems for building technology, water resource management and industry, is combining its 150 years of tradition with a sustainable vision of the future: “We move water – intelligently, efficiently and in a climate-friendly way.” An impressive new concept is being implemented at the Wilopark construction site that spans 20 hectares in Dortmund: A modern innovation center. Consisting of a factory, management and production areas as well as a networking center for customer meetings, the facility is under construction here to more efficiently exploit synergies from different sectors. The goal is energy-efficient buildings, smart and lean production, energy generation from renewable sources and the implementation of digital processes to create added value for employees, customers and the environment. The implementation primarily requires sophisticated building automation: Hermes Systeme GmbH was selected to design and implement the ICA and automation technology, and WAGO system technology forms the foundation.

A Project Overview:

The requirements for building technology:
Provide flexibility for individual areas and respond to future demands.
Future-oriented and sustainable:
The project relies on digitally networked building technology.
Data means valuable (efficiency) knowledge in Wilopark:
All data points must be individually and reliably controllable.
Wilo and Hermes Systeme rely on WAGO’s modular I/O system to control the building automation.
A total of 125 PFC200 Controllers are installed in Wilopark.

The Technical Building Equipment

The innovative Wilopark’s design presents a special challenge for building technology. The object was to configure the individual areas as flexibly as possible, thereby integrating the building equipment so that it can correctly react to all current and future demands. Particular emphasis was placed on area neutrality, flexibility and efficiency.

Therefore, all lights, meters, presence sensors, volumetric flow controllers, pumps and shading systems in the new construction were integrated into the building management system (BMS). “In this project, we’re talking about a good 6,500 hardware data points and around 100,000 virtual data points,” reports Christian Nölker, Project Manager BMS at Hermes Systeme GmbH. The company has specialized in automation and industrial wiring projects for 30 years, and was entrusted with managing the HVAC work, boilers and air-conditioning controllers as well as lighting and blinds in the Wilopark project. Markus Kauling, who is responsible for Wilo’s supply technology and energy supply, explains the goals for the building automation, “We want to view everything at once, and have the necessary access to all operating and diagnostic data from the data points. They also must be controllable because every data point generates valuable information for us.”

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Our customers expect reliability, and we expect the same from the hardware we install.

Christian Nölker, Project Leader BMS at Hermes Systeme GmbH

Building Automation in a Key Role

Another important aspect of the building automation system lies in systematic maintenance management. The operating and diagnostic data generated from the data points can be output as error messages by the higher-level control system. Due to these networked error messages, the building technology can ensure consistently high quality for the workspaces and air conditioning and do it with much greater efficiency.

“In order to reliably and consistently provide all of the data, we rely on a completely integrated automation solution and object-oriented programming,” explains Nölker, the project leader from Hermes. “Our customers expect reliability, and we expect the same from the hardware we install. This is one of the main reasons that we decided on WAGO.” The entire control level at Wilopark is implemented using WAGO products. Hermes has integrated a total of 125 PFC200 Controllers from the WAGO I/O System. “The variety of supported protocols is the second aspect, which clearly and directly pointed toward controllers from WAGO,” adds Nölker. In this way, the hardware has overcome one of the greatest challenges in the pump manufacturer’s BMS: the sensors and actuators can be linked to the controller using a good dozen different interfaces, like Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU, or BACnet^®, which provides a high degree of flexibility.

Uniform System Landscape, Different Demands

Although Wilo strongly connected the management and production areas, different demands are placed on the respective building automation systems. “In the office area, the BMS supports use with an efficient implementation of flexible workspace designs,” explains David Wiethölter, a technical building equipment engineer at Wilo. “Each workspace is individually controllable for lighting, shading, heat and ventilation. Other demands prevail in the factory area. Constant air quality is necessary here for the highly sensitive electronics.” Nölker shares this from the viewpoint of a system integrator, “We divided the 55,000 m² manufacturing space of Wilo’s smart factory into a grid. Each light is assigned to a specific grid segment. Individual segments can be aggregated into areas, which then form a mutual lighting scenario.” Based on this concept, and due to the WAGO controllers, Wilo can flexibly establish the individual production islands while accounting for pending order types and loads. And it does this all while simultaneously operating in an energy-efficient manner.

It was already clear during the design stage how efficient we already are due to the uniform WAGO system landscape.

Christian Nölker, Project Leader BMS at Hermes Systeme GmbH

Hermes uses the WAGO e!COCKPIT software platform to generate automation programs. “It was already clear in the design stage how efficient we already are due to the uniform WAGO system landscape,” explains Nölker. The project manager adds, “Objects that are commonly used, like lights, pumps, fans, frequency converters, or also common functions or function blocks are organized into libraries. This means they can be easily reused, and function as instances for the automation programs. If an object is functionally expanded, this occurs centrally in the library, and this expanded function is subsequently available in all object instances in which it is used. This is super efficient.”

Constant Development as an Important Factor in Increased Efficiency

In the first year following the start of production, after a few basic optimizations were implemented and large amounts of data were collected and evaluated, Wilo implemented data-driven optimization measures. “We now have many adjusting points available, which allow us to get closer and closer to our climate protection goals,” exclaims Wiethölter. “However, we also benefit from the continuous diagnostic messages. For example, the ventilation system reports autonomously when a filter needs to be changed, just to give one example from many.” His colleague, Kauling, adds, “Wilo has continuously developed over the past 150 years due to our innovative force, and Wilopark precisely embodies the qualities that customers expect from our products: innovation and energy efficiency. Our building technology, the design from Hermes and the hardware from WAGO, forms a strong backbone for it.”

Sustainability as Part of the Strategy

“Climate protection is part of our business model,” explains Kauling. “With Wilopark, we want to express the innovative strength of our company and our sustainability strategy in the form of architecture, with the aid of modern building control technology.” Building automation ensures both optimal and safe working conditions in the offices and production sites. It also assists in implementing the pump manufacturer’s sustainability strategy.

Among Wilo’s ambitious goals is the reduction of energy consumption by one-third through production line modernization. The technical building equipment plays an important role here. “Changing temperatures in halls of this size is very energy intensive. Therefore, the controller incorporates the weather forecast for the next three days when setting the heat or cooling for our five primary hall spaces,” according to Wiethölter. “Values like wind strength and direction, air pressure, humidity, and predictive data from the German weather services are entered into an algorithm, which ensures that the necessary indoor air quality is maintained, and minimal energy is used for this.” WAGO controllers serve as central control elements in the HVAC and lighting technology systems.

With Wilopark, we want to express the innovative strength of our company and our sustainability strategy in the form of architecture, with the aid of modern building control technology.

Markus Kauling, Wilo Group Leader

Wilopark as a “Living Lab”

Wilo is also using a “Living Lab” approach at their new innovation center. Experimental research is performed here under real conditions and with high levels of user participation. Kauling from Wilo describes the thought process behind it, “We naturally rely on our own products in supply technology. Just under 100 Wilo pumps turn the facility into a major test center for our own technology.” Since the large aggregates primarily have autonomous control functions, it is important that they safely communicate with the higher-level WAGO PFC200 Controllers. Kauling explains, “If colleagues remove one pump from the aggregate, the WAGO controller receives this message through Modbus® and then forwards it to the higher-level building management system via OPC/UA. The entire operation must run reliably, as we ultimately supply systems that are relevant to production.”

The Dortmund company is using the knowledge gained from the Wilopark data points to visualize all of the energy flows and sustainably optimize energy efficiency. The University of Wuppertal is also assisting with this. Wilo is participating in the VeProB joint project (Vernetzte Energieströme von Produktions- und Bürogebäuden), related to networked energy flows from production and office buildings. The focus of the research project, supported by the Federal Ministry for Economy and Climate Protection, lies in the recording, evaluation, and optimization of energy flows in interconnected office and production buildings.

Summary

By redesigning their Dortmund headquarters, the Wilo Group has definitively proven that explicit sustainability strategies are viable when accounting for all company aspects and are supported by structural measures. A future-oriented operation concept, based on digitally networked building technology, supports the pump specialists in becoming an innovative climate protection company. Wilo can rely on automation technology from WAGO for the necessary flexibility.

Basics of Building Automation

Building technology mostly remains out of sight, but it’s there behind every wall and every window, and it touches us daily. Most of the time, we don’t even notice it, unless something stops working – since fault-free operation is the objective behind every component and solution.

Lighting Management for Greater Comfort and Efficiency

In large logistics centers, goods need to be sorted perfectly and stored in a very limited space. For fast order processing without errors, optimal illumination is important in warehouse systems. Because lighting accounts for one of the largest energy consumers in these buildings, an intelligent lighting management system with a professional design is essential. It all comes down to energy-efficient concepts, sophisticated automation programs and reliable hardware.

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Automation Data as the Foundation for More Sustainable Buildings 21 June 2022 Building Automation Drives Efficiency and Innovation