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32 E L EC TR I C AL CONNEC T I ON
S PR I NG 20 1 6
will either be not available under the KNX
protocol in Australia or will be proprietary,
causing an inability to communicate with
other brand products and defeating
the purpose of an open protocol and
Australian Standard.
KNX
-
The radio frequency section of
ISO/IEC 14543-3 (Part 7) has not been
proposed to be adopted as an AS/NZS
standard due to technical advice from the
ACMA regarding the frequency spectrum.
This may be addressed in a future
Standards Australia project proposal
with an agreed and ACMA approved
alternate frequency. To alleviate confusion
of the scope of the AS/NZS Standards
a comment has been inserted into the
preface of Parts 1-6 as follows:
“ISO/IEC 14543-3-7 (Part 3-7) has not
been adopted as an AS/NZS standard at
this time due to an incompatibility with
the Australian Radio Frequency Spectrum
Plan 2013.”
If the ISO/IEC 14543-3 (Parts 1-6) were
adopted, it would still be illegal to sell
radio frequency products of 868MHz
even though they are outside of the scope
of the adopted Standards, due to the
ACM’s rules and RCM product compliance
labelling requirements.
Internationally, work is underway to
increase the suite of Standards of ISO/IEC
14543 to include wireless, the Internet of
Things and other emerging technologies.
The robustness of the ISO/IEC standards
has allowed new technology to be
continually incorporated into the existing
Standards without the need to revise
these Standards.
FUTUREMANAGEMENTOFBUILDING
AUTOMATIONSTANDARDS IN
AUSTRALIA
Lighting Council -
Given the diverse
range of interests in the automation
market in Australia, Lighting Council
suggests that a standards committee
that includes all relevant stakeholders
should be constituted and determine
the appropriate building automation
standards approach going forward. We
suggest that such a committee should
consider the current state of the relevant
Australian automation market sectors and
relevant automation standards as part of
such an assessment.
Product and application areas relevant
to home and building automation include
(but are not limited to) lighting, HVAC,
security, fire alarms, white goods and
appliances, EV charging, cogeneration,
electrical accessories, facility
management and the Internet of Things.
Builders, installers, facility managers,
network operators and regulators
should also be included in a
comprehensive constitution.
There is also work underway at the IEC
Standardisation Management Board level
of which Australia is the convenor to map
and review the large number of smart
home/office building standards activities
that are underway across the IEC, ISO,
ITU, IEEE and other relevant industry
bodies. The information compiled during
this review will form a roadmap and
could be used as part of the assessment
of future Australian automation
standards activities.
The ISO/IEC 14543.3 Standards
will undoubtedly be included in the
above mentioned IEC SMB roadmap
and should be included among other
relevant standards as part of an
overall assessment of the approach to
Australian and New Zealand building
automation standards undertaken by
a comprehensive building automation
standards committee.
KNX
-
The Australian home and building
automation sector has been operating
for some time without a standard to
work with which has seen many projects
having multiple protocols operating
independently of each other and creating
on-going difficulties for service and
maintenance of these systems. Having
an open standard that crosses the
boundaries of different applications
allows interoperability between
application and manufacturers and
simplifies the overall system.
The Australian government and
Standards Australia has a policy to adopt
IEC standards wherever possible and the
adoption of the ISO/IEC 14543-3 group of
Standards that define an open protocol
complies with this policy.
The Standard ISO/IEC 14543-3 has been
proven at the international level in the
home and building automation sector with
worldwide manufacturers across multiple
disciplines (lighting, HVAC, security
etc.) embracing the Standard with their
product development for many years.
The strength of this Standard has seen it
already adopted in other countries and
successfully used for many years.
In most instances the standard is not
mandated, therefore not compulsory, so
the market has an option on specification
of the standard, whereas currently in
Australia the absence of a standard
does not provide the ability to ensure
complete integration and interoperability
of services.
While considering the way forward in
the wider space of building automation
standards, development is a great
concept. We should not allow such
considerations to delay adoption
of current proven standards in the
international arena that can assist the
efficiency and economic performance
of the home and building automation
industry right now.
The proposal to introduce the KNX Standard in
Australia has been met with some opposition.