By Megan Wehring
Honeywell partnered with city engineers to develop an assessment report on Kyle’s infrastructure.
Representatives from Honeywell International, Inc. presented investments to Kyle City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 4.
The assessment report included water utility, water meter and building infrastructure. Buildings in Kyle are currently operating independently with no management system. Luis Montes, a business development consultant for Honeywell, said management systems for multiple allows for more efficient controls.
“A building management system is a system that is able to connect all the building’s infrastructure and run the systems more efficiently,” Montes said. “Because the city doesn’t have any, it is really difficult to control and bring energy efficiency to those systems.”
One challenge included in the report is the city of Kyle suffers from water loss. According to the assessment, there is a 14% average yearly water loss which equals to about 136 million gallons yearly.
Honeywell recommends the city of Kyle to create a ‘smart city platform’ that will manage the infrastructure more efficiently.
“The city can grow effectively,” Montes said. “They could alarm, monitor and automate a lot of the processes that are currently in place. It would be able to geofence specific residences, homes, neighborhoods, calculate and analyze how much water is being used. This would all be calculated in real-time.”
Montes said he believes Kyle residents would gain the most out of the platform.
“We’re talking real-time data, real-time usage, automatic billing, accurate billing,” Montes said. “So it would definitely be a great plus and bonus for the residents. In addition to the city being taxpayer fiscally responsible.”
Councilmember Alex Villalobos questioned the accessibility services offered with the platform.
“From the staffing standpoint, what type of tools would they have should something be happening to the system? Would they be able to do anything remotely?” Villalobos asked.
Montes ensures that the platform will be mobile-friendly, especially in the current technology-driven world.
“The building management system for the city would be cloud-based, the SCADA system,” Montes said. “We definitely have the right technology to be able to have the city’s employees be able to remote in a secured channel that is definitely protected from cyber threats.”
Employees would also be able to make adjustments when needed, while receiving notifications from alarms on the platform. It would be accessible through a laptop or cellphone through a central command station.
