Interactive Kiosk for High Performance Building

This project will consist of the design and installation of an energy management system and kiosk to evaluate energy usage for the various energy efficiency measures installed in the building: direct/indirect evaporative cooler, VRF System, and domestic hot water and space heating system at a high-performance building on site at a local water district. Additional monitors will be installed on the photovoltaic system and for outside air temperature and humidity measurements.

The Frontier Project Interactive Kiosk is a collaborative project with Southern California Edison and the Cucamonga Valley Water District to install an interactive kiosk highlighting the energy consumption of The Frontier Project’s state-of-the-art energy efficient (EE) technologies. The Frontier Project is a 14,000 square foot demonstration building set to educate resident consumers, commercial builders, and sustainable advocates regarding the latest methods and technologies in water, energy, and site conservation. This project’s goal is to install an interactive kiosk displaying the major EE technologies implemented in The Frontier Project in order to give users a comprehensive understanding of the energy consumption of a high-performing EE commercial building. The interactive touch-screen kiosk works by pulling real-time data from the major EE technologies represented in The Frontier Project, including the variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system, direct/indirect evaporative cooler, and domestic hot water and space heating systems. In addition to electricity consumption, the kiosk displays information on the building’s EE design, water conservation techniques, natural gas consumption, photovoltaic solar array energy generation, and weather data. Users can access information on the kiosk by selecting any category visible on the main screen. While power demand and energy consumption is the primary focus of the kiosk, solar, weather, and green facts are also items featured on the kiosk. The interactive kiosk was installed and commissioned successfully as shown in Figure 1. The initial kiosk roll-out has limited capabilities, but will constantly be a work in progress. Training is provided to multiple Cucamonga Valley Water District employees that will enable the kiosk to be updated to create a more robust final display that will incorporate many additional kiosk features. Additional features may include syncing the kiosk to the building’s automation system portal to allow the user to get a deeper look into how the EE components in the building are operating in real-time. In addition, the kiosk will be updated as new equipment is installed, or simply to keep the look and feel of the kiosk fresh. The efforts to install a kiosk at The Frontier Project site has sparked interest from Southern California Edison’s Customer Technology Application Center (CTAC) and Agricultural Technology Application Center (AgTAC) to install similar kiosks or displays at their facilities. The content of the kiosks is expected to be the same, but each center will customize the displays to match the aesthetics of their respective sites.