The scope of services of M&P
- Planning of future-proof building automation in the All Electric Society Pavilion – with all the performance aspects of a smart building
- Best possible networking of sectors for the optimal flow of renewable energy
- Control of ventilation systems, heating circuit distributors, lighting control, glare protection to provide shade and connection of all meters
- Main topics: networking of the individual technologies, the automation of building services systems, development of an equipment identification system (EIS)
- Installation of an MQTT broker for comprehensive data communication
The All Electric Society Park allows people to experience technologies and innovations for the energy transition up close. Tours show visitors the diverse ways renewable energy is generated, converted, stored, distributed and used. One of the most important practical examples comes from M&P’s planning: with sophisticated building automation, we can already demonstrate solutions to the challenges of tomorrow, today.
How does green electricity get into the building? What good does solar power do when the sun is not shining? Does sustainability pay off economically? The All Electric Society Park on the premises of Phoenix Contact’s headquarters in Blomberg provides answers. With this outdoor exhibition, the ambitious electronics manufacturer envisages the carbon-neutral, sustainably developing world of the future – to which the company contributes advanced solutions and products. Only renewable electrical energy is used in the All Electric Society. The focus is on intelligent and networked systems: key technologies for a sustainable future, implemented by Phoenix Contact and other innovators in the energy transition. Including M&P.
On a tour of discovery through the park, visitors to and customers of the company explore ideas in glass ‘cubes’ relating to solar and wind energy, local network stations and electrical power distribution, energy conversion and storage, battery storage, thermal energy distribution including heat pumps with different sources (waste heat, ice banks, pavements, energy fences), water-related and environmental technologies, and ideas for electromobility.
Our mission: empowering the All Electric Society
The focal point of the park is the All Electric Society Pavilion, which houses all the aspects of powering a smart building. The park vividly illustrates how ideal networking of the sectors contributes to the optimal flow of renewable energy. It puts the focus on building automation. At last.
‘Many people see building automation as a niche product, but a building would not function at all without automation. It connects all the cost groups that we have in a building. It is not enough for some programmer to bring together warm and cold. Phoenix Contact wants to show that energy-efficient, future-proof building automation must be planned from A to Z,’ says David, Senior Project Engineer at M&P.
At the AES All Electric Society Park, his team provides a prime example of planning expertise. It shows why Phoenix Contact and M&P are ahead of the game: as cooperation partners, they supervised the park’s building automation from the concept through to planning and execution. The experts from M&P were responsible for the control system for the ventilation, heating circuit distributors, lighting control, glare protection to provide shade and the connection of all meters. The focus was on the networking of the individual technologies, the automation of the building services systems and the development of an equipment identification system (EIS) for Phoenix Contact.
M&P brings together all the different worlds of data
One particular challenge was the fact that the data point density in the park is seven times higher than in other projects with the same number of sensors and actuators. It proved possible to achieve this through targeted selection of innovative products.
‘In the All Electric Society Park, the world of building automation meets industrial and process automation. Two very different fields. If something doesn’t happen within milliseconds in process automation, a production line won’t work. If a thermostat in a building goes up in ten seconds instead of five, no one notices. Industry also speaks a different language when it comes to exchanging data. Online cloud platforms relating to smart buildings and smartphone control are also being used in the park. The difficult part was marrying all the systems together in such a way that they could communicate with each other. Communication directed to the central MQTT broker brings all these worlds together. The information needed can be used for any application,’ says David.
The project’s ambitious schedule also reflects how remarkable the cooperation between the two partners was. Work began in February 2023, and the All Electric Society Park opened its doors in September of the same year, just in time for Phoenix Contact’s 100th anniversary celebrations. The title of the exhibition is ‘Experience, discover and explore the future’. M&P was instrumental in paving the way to its completion.