Finns drive for smart buildings

A local government building in the Finnish city of Tampere has networked variable speed fan drives into its heating and ventilating system during a major refit of the 40 year old building.

The Finnish climate make environment control within large or public buildings a critical issue, so the Estates Managers are keen to be able to monitor performance of the whole building from a central location. To advance this many of the public buildings are being upgraded with suitable control networks.

The NEKALA 2 building, built originally in 1968, comprises 15,000 sq m over two floors.  Housing some 80 people, responsible for various local authority functions, the building incorporates a depot, with garages as well as offices, a kitchen and lunchroom and, of course a sauna.  The refurbishment project involved the conversion of workshops to provide additional office space, involving a revamp of the HVAC system as well as building and fitting out of the new space.