USAL and Iberdrola collaborate with Qatar to improve energy efficiency in homes worldwide

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Researchers from the BISITE Research Group of the University of Salamanca together with Iberdrola, the Hamad Bin Khalifa University of Doha (Qatar) and the Qatari electricity and water supply company Kahramaa, are working together on the AI-BEMS project. 

What is the project about?
The main objective is to create an intelligent platform to optimize energy consumption in buildings and homes through various technologies, thus contributing to economic and energy savings. Specifically, the collaboration stems from Iberdrola Innovation Middle East, the R&D&I hub inaugurated by Ignacio Galán in Doha in 2018. Working alongside this branch of the Spanish company are members of the Qatari university and the BISITE Research Group of the University of Salamanca.

Concerned and motivated by the exponential increase in energy consumption and CO2 emissions throughout the world, the members of AI-BEMS propose to use technologies such as explainable artificial intelligence, internet of things, machine learning and deep learning to collect data on energy consumed in companies and homes and, based on them, recommend energy efficiency measures by redirecting behavior. As the researchers themselves explain, user preferences and customer feedback would be taken into account to influence these recommendations and maximize comfort.

            Members of the AI-BEMS project during a meeting held in October 2022.

AI-BEMS: origin and expectations
The name of the project refers to the terms "adaptive and intelligent" (AI) and the abbreviation BEMS (Building Energy Management System) refers to an energy management system for buildings that makes it possible to control electrical elements and equipment such as thermostats, boilers or lighting systems. In the future, by using the system in buildings, users and home inhabitants will be able to consciously and fully manage the energy resources used for each electrical technology or item used in their own homes or workplaces, thus making a convenient contribution to improving energy efficiency worldwide.

The project is planned to last three years and, in this context, two pilot tests will be carried out in a real environment to test the progress. According to its members, the work will have a significant impact on the future of energy management thanks to the large energy savings it will bring: "There is an urgent need to put an end to the waste of resources and one way to get there is to improve the efficiency of existing traditional systems. This project will generate significant savings in electricity consumption in homes, which will benefit both the planet - helping to combat climate change - and consumers, who will be able to save money," says one of USAL's researchers.

                                  Project researchers testing the smart platform.

The IoT or internet of things refers to a series of devices or objects present in homes that have an internet connection and a certain level of intelligence. Some examples of such devices are already well established in homes today, such as surveillance systems using mobile applications, smart watches, robot vacuum cleaners for cleaning or refrigerators that can be connected to virtual assistants such as Alexa. The huge growth in the number of these devices, security deficiencies and network bandwidth are creating a bottleneck that hinders the performance of existing IoT-based systems for building and home development. In fact, the aforementioned BEMS solutions already exist, which are building energy management systems that allow to control electrical elements and equipment, the problem is that they usually offer cloud-based services that adapt to consumption patterns, but that users do not usually follow. In addition, so far, these systems pose risks such as the possibility of cyber-attacks and overly demanding data transmission bandwidth.

Current phase
To date, the researchers have gone beyond the concept, and have made progress on the design specifications of the platform and other designs that will be progressively integrated. The project has been presented through academic papers and has a website, as well as other dissemination activities and a future control app. Currently, the researchers are continuing to focus their efforts on the edge computing architecture, as well as on collecting, designing and acquiring the data and devices necessary to carry out the two pilot tests. The idea is to define a strategy so that, after system validation and testing, the platform can be introduced to the market and used on a global scale, regardless of the duration of the project.