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The future looks a lot like the installation of a BACnet-enabled VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) from ABB, working in tandem with the Automated Logic Corporation Building Automation System (BAS) at the Aurora City Schools district in Aurora, Ohio. The drive – the first VFD to offer BACnet without hardware additions – began to operate a motor on an AHU at the district's Harmon Middle School this past July.

System Integrator Comfort Control Group, the district's energy-management partner, installed the drive and set up the direct interface to the BAS. Such an installation, up and running, confirms that true open protocol has arrived for drives/motor control users in the HVAC industry.

From a vendor/manufacturing perspective it's extremely satisfying to see this development work in serial communications proved out in real-world real-time conditions.

BACnet is available as a FLASH-loaded option in ABB's drive for HVAC, the ACH550 Low Voltage AC Drive series, now with an extended voltage range -- available in NEMA 1 or NEMA 12 enclosures, with supply voltages from 208V to 600V, and featuring two internal slots for options, which includes 115/230V digital interface card, I/O expansion, or fieldbus adapters. (At 600V, the drives are available in a 2 – 150 horsepower range.)

It's the final piece in the serial communications puzzle -- built right into the drive. BACnet is an open communications protocol developed by members of the ASHRAE community.

For Aurora building operations personnel, the BAS/VFD technology makes remote access, diagnostics and control easier than ever before. If you can get to a PC and an Internet browser, you can monitor and modify your HVAC operating conditions from wherever you are. BACnet, a true open protocol already receiving wide acceptance internationally, relieves these operators of the need for the expense and challenges of wiring gateways from their VFD components to the BAS, so the connection and information is getting more and more direct. Real-time serial communications means better information, which enables operators to make better energy-management decisions.