Smart Campus Technology Implemented at Company Headquarters

Smart buildings guide smarter decisions. Image credit: SAS

SAS is starting to establish a “smart campus” at its Cary, NC, headquarters to build on its corporate sustainability leadership and Internet of Things (IoT) technology expertise. The smart campus project will take advantage of SAS’ advanced, real-time analytics to improve energy usage while monitoring equipment performance in order to boost operational longevity. They will build a handful of buildings at the beginning, two on-site solar farms and select waste containers. The project will eventually span across most of the 24 buildings on the campus.

"Analytics should be one of the cornerstones of smart city management," said SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. "Using our own analytics to help us operate more efficiently and identify ways to make improvements on our campus has additional value for our customers. It gives us firsthand insight into how we can help them navigate their own smart city-related initiatives with products and best practices that will help them be successful."

The smart campus IoT project provides access to data from equipment and energy meters that are connected to the building management system. The company will use SAS Visual Analytics to analyze the data gathered from the system to improve operational efficiencies. The SAS Event Stream Processing will be used to analyze streaming data, capture that data, and trigger alerts in real time. As the project continues, data from other sub-meters, wireless sensors and smart-enabled devices will be analyzed to identify improvement opportunities.

SAS believes this pilot program will illuminate relationships between the overall system and the components to help pinpoint drivers of electricity consumption. This will translate into finding ways to reduce costs and benefit the environment. Knowledge derived from the pilot will support R&D initiatives and hone SAS IoT solutions.

SAS is deploying hundreds of wireless sensors to track interval energy consumption in the buildings. The sensors will transmit data every 10 seconds, and this data will be analyzed to improve facility operations and energy management. Details of this usage and historical data will help SAS understand operations, monitor environmental conditions and benchmark energy consumption.

The dumpsters at SAS world headquarters are getting a smart upgrade. Sensors placed in the dumpsters will deliver hourly volume data, so the company can adjust waste and recycling services to their needs. This information can allow SAS to accurately measure waste and recycling, eliminate unused dumpsters and reduce pick-up schedules. This will decrease operational expenses.

SAS’s solar farms are receiving improvements that will increase efficiency as well. Most of the panels on Solar Farm 2 will be replaced with newer higher-capacity panels and the old panels will be recycled. Monitoring and communication systems for Solar Farms 1 and 2 will receive upgrades to provide more granular data for use in SAS Visual Analytics. It will also have real-time data to use with SAS Event Stream Processing.

Building A, which is slated to be completed in early 2019, will be the first office building on the campus that will have almost half its power supplied by a renewable resource. The 1.7-megawatt hours produced annually by Solar Farm will provide 45 percent of the electricity needed for this building. This building will house the SAS’ Collaboration and Learning Center.

To learn more about these green developments, visit the site here.