Use case #3 Energy management in smart buildings/cities

NEPHELE Use Case 3 - Energy Management in Smart Buildings and Cities addresses energy efficiency in our rapidly urbanizing world.

By 2050, we'll have 9.7 billion people on our planet, and 90% of our time will be spent in buildings. The challenge is clear: buildings consume 40% of global energy, with HVAC systems accounting for 50% of that consumption. More concerning is the fact that 30% of HVAC energy is wasted in unoccupied zones due to traditional schedule-based controls, without considering actual room occupancy or usage patterns.

This is where NEPHELE Use Case 3 comes in. Our objective is to create an intelligent, interoperable, and customizable IoT edge-cloud continuum for building energy optimization. This involves improving HVAC energy use based on real-time occupancy data.

Our solution operates on three integrated layers:

1. The IoT layer samples environmental sensors and uses mic and tiny ML to detect occupancy in real-time on constrained IoT devices. These devices are intelligent and equipped with adaptable algorithms that adjust their behavior according to the specific environmental conditions of each room.
2. The Edge layer represents heterogeneous assets as W3C Web of Things virtual objects, providing unified access and interoperability across diverse building systems.
3. Our Cloud layer orchestrates composite virtual objects for smart HVAC energy balancing and scheduling using aggregated IoT and edge data.

Moreover, NEPHELE uses synergetic meta-orchestration to support the deployment and life cycle management of distributed applications over programmable multi-cluster computing and networking infrastructure.  New sensors and devices to update the system can be easily integrated in short time. 

The results speak for themselves:

• Over 21% HVAC energy reduction
• 100% security and trust
• Over 83% user comfort
• 100% system reliability

We run a live demo at Odin's facilities showcasing real-time monitoring, prediction, and intelligent HVAC control. Our research results, such as the Tiny ML engine and MicroEP engine, have been integrated into the Siemens Portfolio Platform 5, which is an end-to-end development suite for resource-limited devices in building automation. Beyond the immediate impact, we have contributed to W3C Web of Things standards.