Controls upgrade: Money in the Bank.(Bank of America Tower gets digital control system upgrade)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

Seventeen years ago, the Bank of America Tower was the tallest building in the Pacific Northwest. Standing 76 stories tall with over 1.5 million sq ft of space, it still has that honor. Back then, its original Alerton (r) direct digital control (ddc) system installation was the largest ddc system installation in the world. Today, the Bank of America Tower's owners (Equity Office Properties) are upgrading to Alerton's native BACnet (r) compliant product line, BACtalk (r).

HANDLING MANY POINTS OF CONTROL: A POINT OF PRIDE

The Bank of America Tower offers Class "A" office space to some of the most successful firms in the Puget Sound region. The building owner selected the Alerton BACtalk product line because it is state of the art and it uses an ASHRAE communication standard that offers interoperability, expandibility, and future competition. In addition, the owner wanted Internet access to the automation system. This feature is available through the Alerton Webtalk [TM] Internet Server.

Native BACnet was implemented at all system levels from the terminal unit controller level to the operator workstations. A dedicated Ethernet riser now communicates to four graphical workstations and forty Alerton Lsi global controllers. The system controls more than 12,000 points (objects) and provides central building management for more than 2,200 hydronic heat pumps, over 350 fans, and all other central equipment including an extensive hydronic loop with 15 boilers, 15 heat exchangers, six cooling towers, and multiple circulation pumps.

STAYING IN THE LOOP ON HYDRONICS

The building utilizes a hydronic beat pump system that shares its circulation piping with the ...