Glossary
Short definitions of terms that come up in facilities, energy and data center work, including the ones we use on this site.
A to C
The unit that moves, filters and conditions air for a building zone. Fan, filter and valve faults show up in its BMS data.
When so many alarms fire that operators stop trusting or reading them, and real faults get buried.
The list of every piece of equipment, with nameplate, location, documents and service history.
A measured model of how a building normally uses energy, fit to its own meter data and weather. Savings are measured against it.
Building management (or automation) system: the controls that run HVAC and lighting schedules and setpoints. Edviro reads data from it.
A multi-year list of repair, replace and upgrade projects. Edviro ranks them by modeled payback from measured use.
Computerized maintenance management system: software for work orders, assets and preventive maintenance. SchoolDude, FMX and AssetWorks are examples.
Carbon dioxide in occupied rooms, a proxy for ventilation. Classrooms are commonly checked against 800 and 1,100 ppm guidelines.
Checking that a building’s systems work as designed. Continuous commissioning keeps checking after handover.
Computer room air handler / air conditioner: the units that cool a data center. CRAH uses chilled water; CRAC has its own compressor.
D to M
Data center infrastructure management software for racks, power and capacity. Edviro reads it alongside the BMS.
The part of an electric bill set by the highest short peak in the month, not total use. One hot afternoon can set it.
A living model of a building built from its connected data and verified fixes, used to test decisions before spending money.
Temperature difference between supply and return water or air. Low ΔT on a cooling unit often means a valve or coil problem.
Electrical power monitoring system: meters and alarms for UPS, switchgear and PDUs.
Software that spots equipment faults in building data and names the likely cause.
How much more IT load a room or pod can take before cooling runs out.
Meter readings every 15 minutes or hour. It shows schedule drift and peaks that a monthly bill hides.
International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol, the common standard for measuring energy savings.
Proving that a change actually saved energy by comparing measured use with the baseline, adjusted for weather and occupancy.
N to W
An airborne-infection isolation room kept at lower pressure than the corridor so air flows in, not out.
Scheduling HVAC and lighting around who is actually present, using WiFi, badge or sensor data.
Power distribution unit: delivers power to racks and reports load per circuit.
Scheduled inspections and service done before a failure, by time or by runtime.
Power usage effectiveness: total facility power divided by IT power. 1.0 would mean no overhead.
The single fault behind a group of symptoms or alarms, as opposed to the alarms themselves.
When HVAC schedules slowly stop matching how a building is used, after overrides, breaks and calendar changes.
The target value a control system holds, such as 72 °F or −0.01 in. w.c.
Equipment turning on and off too often, wasting energy and wearing it out.
Heating and cooling running in the same space or air handler at once, fighting each other.
A tracked job: the problem, cause, priority, owner, steps and proof it was fixed.
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