ASHRAE Journal - June 2019 - 8

INDUSTRY NEWS
humpback whale and the owl wing to reduce resistance
and the root system of a tree to provide stability. They
achieve an energy saving of from 10% to 15% and lower
operating noise. With the physical structure of the humpback whale transferred to the new radial impeller, the
leading edge of the fan blade has an undulating profile
modelled on the golf-ball sized bumps on the whale's fins
to avoid excessive turbulence, reducing both flow losses
and noise. The bionic profile has no gaps which would
allow dirt or condensation to penetrate and which would
not only lead to corrosion but also create an imbalance.
"One reason we achieve efficiency is because our new
centrifugal fan is light," said Peter Fenkl, Ziehl-Abegg's CEO.
"It uses less material and at the same time it is more stable."
The company also displayed its solution for predictive
maintenance. The ZAblue galaxy offers a 360° overview
of all networkable devices, from fans and motors to
complex elevator systems. Customers can get a real-time
view of all their networked products remotely, receiving
warnings by e-mail, SMS or WhatsApp. "Whether the
fans are in San Francisco or Beijing, the customer can
see how they are performing from their office. They can
monitor a hundred, thousand or 10,000 fans for temperature, vibration, or motor parameters to know exactly
what the fan is doing, how many hours it has worked,
and what is its remaining life. All communication is via
the cloud. Customers have the information they need to
decide upon maintenance systems," Fenkl said. "We are
learning more about what we can do with the data, creating algorithms to get a result from the data. This provides additional value to our customer base," Fenkl said.
The connected world concept was pioneered by
ASHRAE's BACnet® decades ago. BACnet is the most popular open protocol found in building automation and
energy management systems, allowing building owners and systems integrators the opportunity to choose
BACnet compliant equipment from various vendors.
According to BSRIA, BACnet has reached a global market
coverage of 64%. Looking forward, supporters think it
can be the platform to become the leading Building IoT
standard with the possibility of combining all applications into one network. Recent developments have been
to integrate indoor mobility, elevators and escalators
and to use cloud systems.
Contemporary Controls was one of the companies
exhibiting with the BACnet Interest Group Europe. The
company showcased several new BACnet compliant
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ASHRAE JOURNAL

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J U N E 2 0 19

The Geerit Pluvia roof drainage system is based on a negative pressure suction system.
It allows the complete drainage of a roof without the requirement of a slope in the pipe
work. Large roof areas can therefore be drained through a single discharge stack.

devices, including the BASrouter 3.0, a BTL Listed compact BACnet multi-network router which provides versatile stand-alone routing between BACnet/IP, BACnet
Ethernet (ISO 8802-3), and BACnet MS/TP networks.
The BASrouter enhances network diagnostic capabilities with visual analytics. Diagnostics include a graphical
MS/TP status table, routing status table, network errors
count, and traffic statistics. These new features allow an
integrator to install robust BACnet networks with ease.
For remote access solutions, the RemoteVPN is a
service offered by Contemporary Controls that allows
systems integrators remote access to systems from the
convenience of the systems integrator's home or office.
A cloud-based VPN server hosted by Contemporary
Controls provides the critical connection between two
VPN clients-one installed on the systems integrator's PC
and the other permanently installed on Contemporary
Controls' VPN router located at the remote location.
Using this approach, two secure VPN tunnels are created
with no concern for intervening firewalls. The Skorpion
series of VPN routers offer models with wired and cellular connectivity options. Multiple remote sites can be
accessed simultaneously using the service.
Sauter, another BIG-EU exhibitor, introduced its
modulo 6 combining high performance with IoT architecture. Sauter modulo 6 is based on BACnet/IP and
integrates all of the usual field bus protocols such as
Modbus, M-Bus, KNX, BACnet MS/TP, etc., for the control of heating, ventilation, climate, lighting and energy,
while combining all systems into one stable, secure
overall system. Data can be stored automatically in the
cloud as required or can be integrated with the local system from the cloud. The sees the cloud as providing new

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ASHRAE Journal - June 2019

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