IoT services, key to building transformation

With the climate emergency driving new solutions and mechanisms to address a sustainable future, the need to manage all resources through optimization arises. In this sense, not only must the business fabric be capable of optimally managing its resources and existing energy sources; cities and the buildings that comprise them must also implement solutions and models that enable their optimization and improve their profitability. Without going further, according to studies by the European Commission, buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the European Union. With this data, the conclusion is drawn that buildings consume almost half of the world’s energy. And indeed, according to the European Union Directive on the energy efficiency of buildings, more than 40% of energy consumption in Europe is due to heating and lighting of the existing building stock. Faced with this situation, the construction sector is focusing on responsible consumption and the incorporation of technologies that optimize the management of operations and the use of resources. However, the need for the construction of new buildings, infrastructure, and civil works has decreased since the previous era of the real estate boom, and no increase is expected in the short term. With these premises, it is estimated that around 85% of the buildings that will be in use in 2050 are already built. That is, there will be few new buildings and many existing building stocks that require optimization to contribute to energy savings. In this sense, and as part of measures for sustainable development both nationally and internationally, the use of solutions for the energy efficiency of buildings is being promoted by reusing existing investments through control systems in homes and buildings. At this point, not only is a comprehensive transformation of buildings towards Smart Buildings essential, but also, proper management of the operation of real estate asset facilities is critical for their profitability, given the influence of maintenance and operation costs on it. This criticality is even more pronounced in the operation of a portfolio of buildings, due to geographical and technical dispersion, as well as renovations and changes of use. Building Management Systems (BMS), designed for the automation of facility operations and deployed independently in each building, are true “islands” of information that prevent cross-cutting management of multiple buildings and thus hinder initiatives for global reduction of energy consumption and maintenance costs. The emergence, years ago, of standardized communication protocols, such as Modbus, Bacnet, or KNX, was an important step in solving these problems. However, the lack of standards for naming and characterizing information on facilities, equipment, and spaces has continued to prevent the application of cross-cutting management solutions to them. Only recently, with the emergence of IoT technology, the necessary means are available to, based on already installed control systems and without significant investment relative to their cost, cover all buildings with a “layer of information unification.” In this way, their cross-cutting management is enabled, the axis for the digital transformation of property management, turning existing control systems into true IoT information systems for the building. The key to the new IoT vision of control systems is the conception of these as cross-cutting and strategic systems, the basis for the digital transformation of building operation management and its optimization. An example of an innovative and pioneering IoT vision in Spain is the one presented by Edison Next, which, with over 20 years of know-how in control integration, is focusing its activity on providing solutions for the cross-cutting management of building portfolios. The basis for the success of its solutions is a TrulyOpen® architecture, in which the reuse of existing systems prevails thanks to the integration of different manufacturers and protocols, thus guaranteeing a cross-cutting, open, standardized, and scalable system for as many properties as necessary. Likewise, this type of architecture allows the evolution of traditional BMS maintenance services towards more efficient and automated ones, which improve the quality of service.  As well as the introduction of complementary services such as facility analytics, which monitor the operation of facilities to achieve maximum efficiency. Numerous companies have already decided to evolve their BMS and manage their properties centrally in a single information system. The new IoT vision enables the evolution of existing BMS systems, allowing the creation of global management systems and their associated services, and enabling building management based on their actual operating conditions.