By Healthcare Facilities Today

OAKLAND, March, 2014 – Lighting controls demand increasingly more attention from building managers across the globe. In California alone at the end of 2013, the state’s Department of Energy updated its Building Energy Efficiency Program with a lighting requirement that demands multi-level lighting controls (at least three to four levels), putting strain on existing systems that aren’t able to integrate at this volume.

To address the difficulties that building managers face in the wake of changes to the lighting industry, Controlco, an Oakland-based distribution and systems integrator, has partnered with the UK’s Control Network Solutions to offer their revolutionary elitedali™ software to customers in the United States and beyond.

Elitedali™, a driver for NiagaraAX® that has been disrupting the market since it arrived four years ago, integrates light fixture data directly into the Niagara framework for Big-Data-style analysis. Since each lighting fixture in a building may have within it at least 40 data and command points, there are many opportunities for data mining that have traditionally been outside the reach of Niagara. The elitedali™ driver enables NiagaraAX® to control, maintain, manage and visualize massive numbers of DALI® (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface, a global IEC standard for intelligent light fixture communication) light fixtures and reduce the time required to replace light systems and monitor energy usage.

“DALI is the only global standard enabling the control of lighting according to occupancy and daylight while managing maintenance requirements,” Mike Welch, managing director for Control Network Solutions, says. “The contrast with the combination of elitedali™ and the NiagaraAX® framework is that it provides the most vendor-independent solution available today. It also simplifies the infrastructure for accessing lighting data and control.”

“Integrating elitedali™ into our customer offerings was a natural step for us,” Brian Turner, president of Controlco, says. “We’ve long been known for developing problem-solving drivers on the NiagaraAX® platform. As we’ve been watching the lighting industry become more complicated, it made sense to combine our engineering and implementation expertise with CNS’s innovative and truly market-disrupting driver.”

By harnessing the power of data visualization, the ubiquity of cloud computing and opening up what was once limited and proprietary, elitedali™ gives building managers access to detailed information on their lighting usage. With the combination of hands-on expertise from Controlco engineers, integration into existing systems is seamless.

About Controlco

Controlco delivers leading-edge automation and control solutions, products and services that improve business performance and peace-of-mind for commercial and industrial building operators. With state-of-the-art software and industry leading products as well as a full suite of value-added services, Controlco offers total solutions all energy management needs.

About Control Network Solutions

Based just 45 minutes from London, UK, CNS is a Niagara AX® Developer, Tridium and Honeywell Partner. It has a successful track record of creating both client specific and off the shelf web based solutions to the SMART buildings control environment world. They are based upon open standards network communication protocols and compatible with the “Internet of Things” (IoT) and demands for “big data” cloud based analytics. Control Network Solutions has developed a suite of products for the Framework including elitedali™ for lighting, and cns-enocean™ for wireless/battery-less switches, sensors and actuators.