Normal / KIPP Public Charter Schools

Project Overview

Intellimation implemented a private IDCL -- Independent Data and Control Layer -- for KIPP, a leading charter school organization. They use this to provide energy savings, advanced controls, and ongoing monitoring of KIPPS Washington, DC area schools; ensuring the best quality indoor environment for learning.

Project Scope

Intellimation integrated data from 8 separate BASes into a single, cloud-hosted, customer controlled private cloud environment. They used a combination of open source tools like Grafana, Timescale, and OpenVPN along with commercial tools like Delta enteliWeb and Normal Framework to provide a robust data platform with command & control capabilities. They used this platform to deliver energy savings, reporting, retro-commissioning and advanced controls.

‍Why It's Important

Although not the largest project Normal and Intellimation have delivered, it is the one with the most depth, and one which showcases the ability of leading MSIs to deliver advanced building capabilities endogenously, rather than using a vendor-partner for implementation. This brings a host of benefits to the end customer:

• The data platform is bought & owned, hosted in a "private cloud" environment. This gives them full control over the data as well as the ability to switch service providers if needed.

• Delivery by a trusted MSI with BAS capabilities means there is a single "throat to choke'' for data integration and retro commissioning; the MSI (Intellimation) can deliver the software offering including addressing equipment problems or missing sensors. This dramatically reduces cost and project management.

• The use of ontologies and modern reporting tools means that dashboards are reusable, and that control sequences (like Guideline 36 AHU reset loops) can be implemented without custom code per building.

The Future

Intellimation continues to optimize the controls and also monitor the key setpoints and schedules. The deployment model is very repeatable since the platform has very quick time to value; a similar product is available for DC Area schools (120 sites) and several other customers in the public sector. This sort of "FDD lite" can be deployed at a fraction of the cost of full FDD, with much of the benefit making it a good fit for cost-sensitive owners; or simply included in existing service contracts.

‍

Learn more about Normal.