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i-Hub Smart Building Data Clearing House |

Buildings Evolved is proud to be the leading consultant for the i-Hub Smart Buildings Data Clearing House (DCH) – A software platform designed to solve common data related problems for owners and operators of existing or new commercial, industrial, government, and mixed-use developments. The DCH is a horizontally integrated data platform that collects, consolidates, processes and securely shares building data. By making smart building data more accessible, the DCH will drive innovation amongst a broad ecosystem of participating services providers, leading to better products, increased competition, lower prices and an increased value proposition for participants. The DCH is currently under development and set for limited release in 2020.

A large portion of the property industry struggle with accessing their own data and see this problem as significantly impacting upon operations

Location: Australia

Industry: Building & Data

Project Funding: 30m

ihub.org.au

Business Drivers

Industry

Owners and operators in the built environment face significant challenges and limitations for equitable access to information. Such as;

  • Struggling to consolidate data from multiple disconnected systems and service providers
  • Data vendor lock-in, vertically integrated solutions, inflexible proprietary hardware and software solutions with high fees
  • Acquiring a property often means technology uplift and retrofit to suit organisational need
  • Limited access to skilled staff and systems to drive actionable processes in a timely manner

Benefits

The Data Clearing House project seeks to achieve equitable access to information across operational management by;

  • Integrating and automating data processes within a consolidated data platform using a quality data framework
  • Simplify operations and realise direct cost savings by reducing the many and varied vendor solutions and gain more data flexibility for analysis
  • Access to a range of ‘intelligent’ cloud-based diagnostic services to improve the operation of buildings
  • Design bespoke applications across any source, system or provider from a consolidated data platform

Design

The DCH design is based on a high-availability software framework intended to continually ingest data from a wide array of heterogeneous sources, both in format and protocol. API interfaces and bespoke applications of time-series data are transformed in near real-time so decision makers can optimise strategic, financial, operational and workflow planning. Smart buildings will provide real-time edge data in the MQTT protocol from sources such as plant and equipment to enable improved efficiency, maintenance and building functionality. Integrating this data with utility bills, service providers and external data sources will complete the data picture, radically improve building operations and control. Data sources and their processing/ingestion method will be modular by design, so that individual plugins can be added, upgraded or removed without any detrimental impact upon other data sources.

Outcomes

The DCH is set to deliver key functionality from day one;

  • Real-time visualisations, dashboards, alerts & alarms – drive operational management, analysis and control with access to pre-built software-as-a-service modules
  • Third-party Systems – produce events to be actioned upon by connecting to popular vendor systems; Salesforce, Zendesk, Atlassian, amongst others
  • Asset Register – streamline asset management through building information modelling scenarios to deliver time and budget efficiencies
  • Workflow systems – Realise efficiencies in equipment by automating the tuning of smart-buildings with machine learning processes

Business Drivers

Industry

Owners and operators in the built environment face significant challenges and limitations for equitable access to information. Such as;

  • Struggling to consolidate data from multiple disconnected systems and service providers
  • Data vendor lock-in, vertically integrated solutions, inflexible proprietary hardware and software solutions with high fees
  • Acquiring a property often means technology uplift and retrofit to suit organisational need
  • Limited access to skilled staff and systems to drive actionable processes in a timely manner

Design

The Data Clearing House project seeks to achieve equitable access to information across operational management by;

  • Integrating and automating data processes within a consolidated data platform using a quality data framework
  • Simplify operations and realise direct cost savings by reducing the many and varied vendor solutions and gain more data flexibility for analysis
  • Access to a range of ‘intelligent’ cloud-based diagnostic services to improve the operation of buildings
  • Design bespoke applications across any source, system or provider from a consolidated data platform

Implementation

The DCH design is based on a high-availability software framework that is intended to continually ingest data from a wide array of heterogeneous sources, both in format and protocol. From various API interfaces, applications will be able to be developed that can analyse data real-time, time series or transformed data and affect workflow planning and execution as an outcome. MQTT data sources at the edge provide real-time data from plant and equipment contained within a smart building. Couple this with utility bills, external service providers and other data sources to complete the data picture for building operations and control. Data sources and their method of processing/ingestion shall be modular in their construction, so as an individual plugin can be added, upgraded or removed without any detrimental impact upon other data sources.

Outcomes

The DCH is set to deliver key functionality from day one;

  • Real-time visualisations, dashboards, alerts & alarms – drive operational management, analysis and control with access to pre-built software-as-a-service modules
  • Third-party Systems – produce events to be actioned upon by connecting to popular vendor systems; Salesforce, Zendesk, Atlassian, amongst others
  • Asset Register – streamline asset management through building information modelling scenarios to deliver time and budget efficiencies
  • Workflow systems – Realise efficiencies in equipment by automating the tuning of smart-buildings with machine learning processes

Building Shared Values

Be part of the solution, our global contribution;

  • Participate in an international initiative to share and collaborate smart building data for benchmarking, modelling and continual commissioning of built assets
  • Provide research institutes and academics anonymised building data to improve the operation of buildings through innovation programs, research and development of the DCH
  • Be part of Australia’s commitments to the Paris (COP21) agreement on climate change and help reduce emissions

OPTIMISING TECHNOLOGY

Develop organisational goals – translate problems into opportunities through technology to deliver value and return-on-investment;

  • Real-time data applications
  • Up-to-the-minute polling from edge devices
  • Support for event-driven data processing
  • Incorporate external data sources
  • Integrate with standardised reporting tools
  • Enables modular infrastructure changes

Focus on data security, access, ownership and anonymity

  • Security – Organisational data is secured within your consolidated data platform using industry standard encryption, format and protocol best practices.
  • Access – Data access can be determined specific to user role ensuring that personnel have access to the right data to do their job.
  • Ownership – Retain complete ownership and control of organisational data within the DCH platform

Future Capability

Build upon core functionality by exposing operations to a best-of-breed application marketplace. Run software-as-a service solutions across a consolidated data platform. Gain exposure to a market of applications designed by industry and academia with the potential to deliver unparalleled insights, operational control, class-leading efficiency and sustainability programs and surpass voluntary and mandatory reporting requirements.

Outcomes in Operations

Realise efficiency via real-time data from sensors, plant and equipment for efficiency programs, automated preventive maintenance and continual building commissioning regimes:

  • Real-time data automation/demand response programs to reduce consumption in periods of peak demand.
  • Integrated controls of solar PV, batteries, EV charging stations and renewable energy sources to reduce energy demand and/or operate an embedded network.
  • Network generation, storage and consumption assets from multiple sites together to provide valuable demand response and electricity network support services, depending on scale.
  • Automated equipment fault detection and diagnosis to detect potential issues before they become problems.
  • Enable predictive maintenance technologies for real-time data from multiple buildings for analytical modelling.
  • Energy savings and electricity peak demand management to react to spikes in consumption in real-time.
  • Occupant comfort and productivity initiatives to fine tune working environments based on environmental conditions.
  • Building performance visualisations to track KPIs through a user interface to spot abnormal operation and consumption.
  • Benchmarking and normalising performance against industry standards to spot abnormal consumption by benchmarking against ‘normal’ conditions.
  • Bespoke modelling and research analysis to design reports to meet organisational need.
  • Understand consumption at an asset level; site, location, down to the individual electricity meter for detailed information to guide operational decision-making.
  • Smart equipment controllers to pre-cool or pre-heat building space based on weather forecast data.
  • Continual commissioning regimes to maximize efficiency of heat recovery plant, chillers and HVAC systems.
  • Advanced sensor technology integration to optimize plant efficiency based on occupant comfort and numbers of people in the space.
  • Machine learning tasks to pre-empt increases in demand placed upon HVAC plant and equipment and intelligently pre-cool/heat spaces based on predicted need.
  • Automated preventive maintenance, ticketing and workflow to provide on-demand service contracts.
  • Real-time operations dashboard to key staff via the cloud – 24/7 monitoring and control anywhere in the world.

Outcomes in Finance

Realise efficiency and reduce manual data entry and errors by automating bill validation, aggregation and reconciliation tasks:

  • Develop a universal journal for financial/controlling data.
  • Perform on-the-fly aggregation of transactional tables.
  • Automate central finance consolidation tasks.
  • Reduce cycle-time for planning and consolidation.
  • Compare actuals and budget on consolidated levels by managing consolidation, planning and budgeting in one application.

Outcomes in sustainability and mandatory reporting

Realise efficiency and reduce manual reporting, data entry and errors by:

  • Automation of GRESB, NABERS, NCOS and LBG reporting.
  • Tracking emissions against asset and organisational targets.
  • Benchmarking and normalising consumption against industry standards.

Our Global Contribution

  • Participate in an international initiative to share and collaborate smart building data for benchmarking, modelling and continual commissioning of built assets.
  • Provide research institutes and academics anonymised building data to improve the operation of buildings through innovation programs, research and development of the DCH.
  • Be part of Australia’s commitments to the Paris (COP21) agreement on climate change and help reduce emissions.