June 2017

Easier Energy Saving with enCOMPASS

Effective and enjoyable digital systems to make energy consumption data comprehensible to everyone (citizens, public places, building managers, energy companies, schools) and help you manage energy efficiently, with cost savings but without lowering the level of comfort.

This is the goal of the european Horizon 2020 (H2020) enCOMPASS project (Collaborative Recommendations and Adaptive Control for Personalized Energy Saving, www.encompass-project.eu) coordinated by the Politecnico di Milano, which will develop within the next 3 years an integrated socio-technological approach to saving energy.

The achievement of the sustainability objectives set forth by the European Union by 2020 will not only require technological interventions, but also a change in individual energy consumption behaviors. The project will demonstrate how this can be attained through an open platform that integrates:

  1. The display of data gathered from electricity meter systems and from user-generated information;
  2. Intuitive interfaces for understanding the collected data;
  3. Sustainability education through games;
  4. Integration with intelligent building automation and control systems.

Figure 1: Overview of the enCOMPASS Architecture

The platform will be at the heart of a new system that will enable energy sector operators to develop their own energy-saving solutions or to integrate and use innovative services required by the user.

EnCOMPASS will demonstrate its effectiveness in three different European geographic areas, characterized by different climate conditions (humid continental in Hassfurt in Germany, Mediterranean in Athens and Thessaloniki in Greece and sub-continental in Gambarogno in Switzerland) and will be tested in three different types of buildings (residential, schools and offices).

The system will produce a social, economic and environmental impact that will go beyond the boundaries of the experimental areas, as the adopted holistic approach will be replicable in other contexts as well.

Figure 2: Family photo enCOMPASS Kick off Meeting

The project partners include: Politecnico di Milano, Italy, coordinator; European Institute for Participatory Media, Germany; Stadtwerke Haßfurt GmbH, Germany; NABU Naturschutzbund Deutschland, Germany; Watt + Volt (WVT), Greece; Sopracenerina Electric Company, Switzerland; Center for Research and Technology Hellas, Greece; National Documentation Centre (EKT/NHRF), Greece; University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland, Switzerland; Set Mobile S.R.L., Romania; Kaleidos Games, Italy; Kaunas University of Technology, Social Responsibility Research Center, Lithuania; Paradox Engineering SA, Switzerland; Gravity R & D Zrt., Hungary.


Greek Pilot

Figure 3: National Documentation Centre building in Athens and view of the librariy’s main areas.

In the public library and offices of the National Documentation Centre (EKT) in Athens, the change in everyday energy activities of library visitors and personnel of the EKT will be evaluated.
The enCOMPASS system is also tested in an office building in Athens (WVT headquarters) and a commercial Building in Thessaloniki (WVT Retail Store). Also part of the Greek pilot use case are residential buildings and a college in Thessaloniki. The Delta Institute in Thessaloniki will be involved as a school building. The enCOMPASS system will be deployed in all locations. DELTA school is educating over 1.500 students to become energy professionals. This pilot evaluates the achieved change in everyday energy activities and savings across a wide range of residential customers of WVT from flats in buildings in Athens and Thessaloniki.Read more: http://www.encompass-project.eu/pilots/greek-pilot/
http://www.encompass-project.eu/encompass-and-iek-delta-join-forces-to-educate-conservation-aware-energy-professionals/

New Paper on Applied Energy

We just published a scientific paper on energy consumption end-use disaggregation using Hidden Markov Models and Dynamic Time Warping. This is part of the research we are conducting on smart metered data analytics and modelling. The work has been supported by the SmartH2O and enCompass projects.
Cover image Applied Energy

A. Cominola, M. Giuliani, D. Piga, A. Castelletti, A.E. Rizzoli, A Hybrid Signature-based Iterative Disaggregation algorithm for Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring, Applied Energy, 185,  331-344, 2017.

 

 

Tip: Save Energy by Using Google more Precisely!

At home, at the office, in nearly every situation of life, typing Google-queries is a common practice for research and problem-solving. The huge source of information that is provided by search-engines is well-known; on the contrary, their energy consumption is not.

By comparing the energy consumption stated by Google to their amount of queries, a single request consumes as much energy as a LED lamp will do in 15 minutes! And by that, we are not even talking about the further research on the recommended pages.

By avoiding typos and precisely specifying the Google-query, you can decrease a long-lasting research to a minimum and save an extra quarter-hour of lighting for each request that has not been typed.

References:
Consumption 2014: http://t3n.de/news/google-stromverbrauch-ki-deepmind-727798/
Query amount 2016: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/71769/umfrage/anzahl-der-google-suchanfragen-pro-jahr/(Available in German)

enCOMPASS at the Global Internet of Things Summit’17

The 1st Global Internet of Thing Summit (GIoTS 2017) took place from the 6th to the 9th of June this year in Geneva, Switzerland. Co-located with 2017 IoT Week organized by the IoT Forum.

enCOMPASS was there to present a new paper “enCOMPASS – an Integrative Approach to Behavioural Change for Energy Saving” and to discussthe research objectives of the enCOMPASS project, which aims at implementing and validating an integrated socio-technical approach to behavioural change for energy saving.

Read more: http://www.encompass-project.eu/encompass-at-the-global-internet-of-things-summit-2017/

enCOMPASS at the European Utility Week 2016

The European Utility Week 2016 event serves as an annual meeting point for the energy community and was attended by 12.000 international visitors, 450 speakers and 600 exhibitors.

On 15-17 November 2016, over 10.000 Energy Professionals from around the world interacted for 3 days in Barcelona during the European Utility Week 2016, to share insights and catch up on what has become the must-attend international platform in the energy industry. Doing Business, knowledge transfer, innovation and networking was the forefront of the three day event.

Read more: http://www.encompass-project.eu/1277-2/