A recently-held Echelon workshop held in Gauteng by EBV Electrolink had delegates working hard to complete the many hands-on exercises prescribed as part of the courses. The workshop was comprised of three courses sequentially presented by the Echelon manager of customer support and training, Mark Buckland, from the Echelon office in London - the 3-day Network Development course, 2-day course on Network Trouble Shooting, and a 4-day course on Device Development.
Attendees at the Echelon workshop (from left, front): Carel Schaap, Adaptive Resource Engineers; Hannes Smit, Deman; Ben Duvenage, Spero Group. (Back): Darryl Fokming, Enviroware Construction; Kevin Lesser, EBV Electrolink; Fanie Scriven, Deman; Waldemar Wandschneider, Deman
Although the Echelon products and systems have been successfully used in South Africa for a number of years by resourceful local companies and their respective engineers, EBV said it was wonderful to receive training on par with the training presented in Europe.
"With the proverbial 'grey matter' of the attending delegates stimulated we hope to see many more Echelon systems implemented in the South African market. Building automation systems have for too long been omitted from buildings in this country merely based on the initial cost of installation," commented Kevin Lesser, field applications engineer at EBV Electrolink. "The payback and savings are plentiful, if control over the HVAC, access and lighting are used to the benefit of not only the building owner, but the renting company and the individual worker.
"Imagine using energy information from the building to individually adjust the lighting conditions and temperature levels of your office according to your arrival schedule," he adds. "Energy saving programs take over when occupancy detectors note that you are not on schedule and switch off your office lights and airconditioners. But the instant you swipe your access card at the main entrance, your office reverts to your custom settings."
The demand for energy control and monitoring will be on the increase as costs rise and the need to run optimised buildings increase. Power Line Communications (PLC) is becoming a buzzword in this country and as regulations become more flexible, the opportunities for this technology increases. Echelon provides some unique answers in this technology sphere.
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