California Courts Adopt LonWorks Open Systems

Posted by on October 25th, 2011 - No Comments on California Courts Adopt LonWorks Open Systems

Industry LinksSan Jose, CaliforniaOct. 25, 2011 LonMark International, a non-profit member trade association promoting interoperable guidelines for automation systems, today announced the State of California, Administrative Office of the Courts is specifying and installing LonMark open systems throughout courthouses in California. Managed by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), Office of Court Construction and Management (OCCM) as staff to the Judicial Council, oversees construction and management over 450 courthouses throughout California.

Keeping with its mandate to design energy efficient HVAC systems, the AOC is specifying the LonMark open systems standard to help reduce building energy consumption by 15 percent or more. The AOC Building Management System (BMS) requires the use of an “open system” utilizing LonMark certified products allowing total facility control to manage, monitor, trend, schedule, down and up load data to and from building MEP systems network devices and the ability to communicate using the AOC Wide Area Network (WAN) or the Internet.

The Carol Miller Superior Courthouse, located in Sacramento, California was one of the first facilities to transition from proprietary to open systems. This 1990 vintage Building Management System underwent a retrofit to an advanced building control system using LonMark certified products. The system is tied into a server that monitors building space temperatures, HVAC equipment operations, alarms, trends, off normal conditions, electrical, gas and water consumption. The same server allows multiple users to concurrently monitor and control the various building disciplines.

ACS Controls, headquartered in North Highlands California, is the system integrator for the Carol Miller project installing LonMark certified controllers from Schneider Electric. ACS Controls is configuring the system with Echelon’s Lonmaker® Turbo integration tool to an Schneider Electric Vista graphical user interface.

“We are working on several new and retrofit courthouse projects throughout Northern California,” said Mitch Slavenky, president of ACS Controls. “As other courthouses are converted to LonMark open systems they will be integrated into a single server for data collection. The new LonMark based systems are expected to result in fewer occupant complaints, lower operational costs and improvements in HVAC system operation,” Slavensky added.

“LonMark International played an important role in helping the AOC with the development of their vision, specification standards, and helping supply a statewide list of qualified control system integrators,” said Barry Haaser, executive director of LonMark International. Both ACS Controls and LonMark International are working closely with the AOC to advise on industry best practices for designing and installing open interoperable systems,” continued Haaser.

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About LonMark International
LonMark International is a non-profit corporation supporting the testing and certification of products, people and companies supporting the ISO/IEC 14908 body of standards.  Its nearly 400 members manufacture, distribute, develop, install or use systems based on these standards.  For more information about LonMark International please visit www.lonmark.org.

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