Smart building, putting data at the service of energy efficiency in the building sector
To meet the challenges of the energy transition, the energy and environmental performance of buildings is one of the keys. In a smart building logic, the solution developed by Energisme helps property managers and operators to collect, analyze and exploit data to initiate actions to improve energy performance and optimize occupant comfort.
What are the challenges of an intelligent building?
The building sector, both tertiary and residential, is responsible for 45% of energy consumption in France and for more than a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, European and French regulations have made the reduction of energy consumption in buildings a major objective for the energy transition.
Achieving this objective requires energy renovation actions in the residential sector. In the tertiary sector, the tertiary decree and the BACS decree require operators to strictly manage energy performance. The Energisme solution offers modules for monitoring the regulatory objectives to meet this challenge.
In a residential building or in tertiary buildings, the smart building can also achieve significant energy savings.
IoT sensors collect a lot of useful energy data for energy management: multi-fluid consumption data, consumption by system, etc.
By aggregating this data with other data sources, the N’Gage platform allows to :
- identify consumption peaks
- determine the sources of energy losses
- undertake energy renovation work
With smart buildings, we can also collect data on the uses of the inhabitants. For example, connected lighting automatically detects unoccupied spaces. With this information, the operators can determine whether or not it is necessary to light or heat a room. They are able to adapt energy consumption to the real needs of the occupants.
Intelligent buildings are also a challenge for local authorities. The energy consumption of public buildings represents a major expense item. The smart building is a pillar of the smart city.
What is a smart building?
The smart building uses new technologies (Internet of Things, smart sensors,…) to share data produced by the different systems of a building.
The solution developed by Energisme facilitates the collection of massive and heterogeneous data (IoT data, supplier data, BMS data,…). Then, the solution processes and analyzes the collected data to:
- Help building owners or operators improve building performance and save energy
- Automate various processes such as heating, ventilation, air conditioning and building monitoring
The intelligent building completes the building management systems thanks to two major factors:
- Greater visibility into data monitoring
- Advanced analysis
Indeed, the use of IoT sensors on the various building systems increases the amount of data collection points tenfold. The building operator is no longer dependent on data provided by network managers or energy suppliers. He/she gains autonomy in the choice and customization of the data to be collected.
The smart building allows not only to collect more data, but above all, with a software platform like N’Gage, data analysis becomes more relevant.
The platform is indeed designed to process and analyze large sets of data from various sources. Traditionally, energy data management has been the domain of energy suppliers and network managers. Each had its own protocols, and data generally remained in silos. The strength of intelligent buildings lies in making data interoperable for coordinated energy performance management.
From an energy efficiency perspective, multi-fluid data analysis provides a very accurate overview of the building’s energy consumption.
The main features of smart buildings
The great strength of the smart building lies in the connection between all the building’s systems.
All data from
- IoT sensors
- smart meters
- connected lighting
are centralized in the Energisme platform.
Thus, they become completely interoperable. They can even be cross-referenced with other data sources produced by suppliers, network managers or even external data, to perform complex and multi-variable analyses.
The development of the Internet of Things field has made this evolution towards the smart building possible. IoT sensors are revolutionizing data collection.
- Operators are now very autonomous on the nature of the data they want to collect.
The amount of data collected is much greater. But more importantly, sensors, combined with a data processing and analysis platform, provide more granular and precise information to support decision making.
The collected data is then gathered and analyzed in a software platform. The solution developed by Energisme is able to :
- aggregate data from multiple sources
- produce fully customizable reports and dashboards to facilitate decision making
- alert in case of energy drifts
- create models from this data to highlight savings from energy work actions
- model your commitments in real time
This continuous monitoring is a prerequisite for making real-time adjustments and better controlling the conditions in the building.
The smart grid, electrical network for the building sector
In order to meet the regulatory objectives of reducing energy consumption and integrating renewable energies, the modernization of energy networks is a must.
The smart grid is an energy network that integrates new technologies to facilitate the management of energy consumption and the improvement of energy performance for users.
The widespread use of sensors and smart metering in the building sector makes it possible to adjust energy production in real time according to demand.
Consumers are now actors. Thanks to their improved control of energy data, operators are working together with energy suppliers to find solutions to major energy challenges.