4 ways to reduce energy consumption in buildings using Big Data

SCENARIO: Today, more than half the world’s population live in urban areas and it is expected that 2.5 billion people will migrate to cities by 2050¹. At a global level, it is the equivalent of building 30 cities the size of Paris every year for the next 30 years.

The smart cities market is expected to grow by 20% in just 5 years² and the challenge for building owners and city planners is to create more energy and space efficiency solutions, integrating renewable energy sources and occupant and user comfort.

In this scenario, the world’s electricity consumption will increase by 60 percent in the next 20 years, and close to 60 percent of that electricity is used in buildings³.

SOLUTION: Turning your building into a smarter building helps both the environment and your business. Building owners can experience reduced energy costs while shrinking their building’s CO2 emission when they cut down energy consumption in buildings.

Future buildings will rely more on Energy and Asset Management systems, which leverage digital solutions based on common architecture and ‘Internet of Things’ devices connected to dedicated networks and cloud.

Reducing Energy Consumption in Buildings using Big Data

If you’re ready to invest in innovative energy and asset management solutions, we have four tips to help you achieve that experience:

1. Monitor the energy use in your buildings:

First, identify the building systems that use the most energy. Each building has its own energy use profile, so it’s simple to review and understand how much energy each building system is using.

For example, in industrial buildings, energy consumption is associated mostly with industrial equipment and infrastructures dedicated to production processes.

After monitoring parameters, such as peak power and power quality, and analyzing what energy the systems are using, you will understand the impact on energy consumption. The next step is to implement control strategies to save energy. During the monitoring phase, information from heterogeneous sources is collected and analyzed. You have an unexpressed potential of energy information in form of Big Data.

2. Implement an Energy management system

This potential can be exploited by implementing a powerful tool capable of storing and processing a large amount of data from the electrical system. Based on Big Data, it identifies savings and allows you to make improvements on energy usage.

Building owners, energy and facility managers will have a detailed visibility of the energy system thanks to the availability of historic data and real-time information through dashboards via desktop and mobile.

One of the greatest benefits of this system is the ability to scale up seamlessly from one smart building to several, in the direction of multi-chain stores or branch offices, offering a customized solution for your application needs.

Intelligent components connected to a common architecture can offer reports and analyses on buildings, assets and areas which waste most of the energy is wasted.

3. Plan your next actions

Imagine a display on your dashboard which send alerts when a component is going to fail. Or think about a solution that gathers a large amount of data coming from different components all along your energy distribution system and re-elaborate them in a simple, comprehensive view allowing you or your manager to view costs for separate buildings and compare their performances. The system can also decide to focus maintenance on the building with the highest costs or to replace or repair some components to increase efficiency.

Connected devices enable energy and operating cost savings of as much as 30 percent.

4. Now reap the benefits!

Leveraging Big Data and the Cloud to monitor buildings is a great opportunity for small and medium enterprises in order to drive down operational expenditures. Also, a single cloud-based interface and data collection system ensure fast payback and provide compliance with energy efficiency standards. Inefficiencies are spotted, wastes minimized, sites maintenance is optimized from scheduled to need-based, with a reduction of energy bills and maintenance costs by up to 20%. Do you want to know more? Visit the page!

References

World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision: key facts. Available at https://population.un.org/wup/Publications/Files/WUP2018-KeyFacts.pdf by United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019).
Smart Cities Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Application (Governance, Environmental Solutions, Utilities, Transportation, Healthcare) by Region and Segment Forecasts, 2020 – 2027. A report by ResearchAndMarkets.com
New Energy Outlook 2018. A report by BloombergNEF