A modern 500-seat theatre located in Hornchurch, London, the Queen’s Theatre opened in its current purpose built site on Billet Lane in 1975. As a registered charity and a cultural hub of the area, over 200,000 people enjoy the theatre’s programme every year, which includes the best in home produced presentations, visiting live entertainment and inspiring learning and participation projects.
The Queen’s Theatre has benefitted from a Trend Building Energy Management System (BEMS) for a number of years. The site consists of three boilers, two air-handling units (AHUs), and two additional boilers that are dedicated to the radiator heating circuit. This plant is all linked to the BEMS, which enables staff, patrons and visitors to the Queen’s Theatre to enjoy the best possible comfort conditions.
Trend maintains and services the BEMS and the Queen’s Theatre’s Head of Facilities, Terry Abbot, worked closely Trend to explore new and innovative ways to save money by improving the way that the building uses energy. Abbot comments, ‘Trend outlined the benefits that having a touch screen display would offer in terms of being able to monitor the BEMS in real time and make any adjustments to energy use as and when necessary. It was clear that this would offer significant advantages, so we decided to install an IQView8.’
IQView8 makes energy management as simple as possible and has an eight inch full colour 16:9 touch screen display that provides a self-configuring user interface to the Queen’s Theatre’s BEMS. The IQView software presents the user with a familiar Windows operating environment with visual access to all of the controllers and devices on a site, enabling authorised personnel to view and adjust operating times, monitor alarms and make adjustments to controller parameters.
Terry was particularly impressed with the user friendliness of the IQView8 and wanted it to provide him with a better understanding of plant and energy usage. This wasn’t a problem, as the IQView8 can display live information from the system using schematics that are simple to use and easy to understand, allowing even inexperienced users to quickly find the information they are looking for. The IQView8 is configured with six pages – a home page, two pages for the AHUs, a page for all the time schedules, a page for the bar and a final one for the office area. Each page includes all relevant information pertaining to the operation of plant, temperatures, sensor readings, setpoints and override switches.
Although the IQView8 is currently being used in a fairly straightforward way at the Queen’s Theatre, it can also be configured to receive alarms sent from other Trend devices, where they appear on a special display, with an audiovisual indication of the alarm given. Other features include enhanced efficiency via an energy saving mode. This allows the screen to be programmed to switch off and when in this mode the unit’s LED goes green to indicate that it is still powered on and will illuminate again as soon as it is touched.
Terry Abbot is overjoyed with the difference that the IQView8 has made to his ability to control the BEMS at the Queen’s Theatre. He concludes, ‘For a long time I was unable to see exactly what the BEMS was doing and relied solely upon Trend’s engineers to make adjustments when they visited the site. IQView8 has put me in control too, which is fantastic. I am able to review time schedules, make adjustments to setpoints and use plant in the most efficient ways possible. This will save energy and money, enhance comfort conditions, and extend the lifetime of the plant. I wish I’d done it much sooner!
For further information please call Trend Marketing on 01403 211888 or email marketing@trendcontrols.com.