Twenty six per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions come from energy use in buildings. On Australia's hottest days, air conditioners consume up to 22 per cent of all the electricity generated in the nation, with heating and cooling typically accounting for over half of a building’s energy needs.

Bearing these facts in mind, a team of scientists at CSIRO have set about designing technologies that control how energy is used, managed and generated in buildings, under the auspices of the Energy Transformed Flagship Initiative. One of the technologies to emerge from this initiative is BuildingIQ, a supervisory control software program that constantly evaluates a building’s thermal needs and aims to meet them in the most energy efficient manner.

How BuildingIQ works

BuildingIQ software is installed on an onsite server which receives internal information from the existing building management and control systems about the thermal condition of the building, as well as external information from sources such as the Bureau of Meteorology. Based on these information feeds, BuildingIQ ensures that only what is necessary to meet the thermal needs of the building´s occupants is deployed within the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system.

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To do this, the BuildingIQ software learns the energy characteristics of the building and then acts as an autopilot, constantly adjusting the HVAC system to ensure that optimal combinations of set-points and control schedules are operational at any given time. Although BuildingIQ is fully automated, building Y operators can influence how it operates.

Mike Zimmerman, CEO of BuildingIQ, the company established in 2009 to commercialise the BuildingIQ software, says that it uses what is called ‘Predictive Energy Optimisation’ to get the most out of existing building energy management systems. Such technology is invaluable, says Mr Zimmerman, not only because it works towards reducing the large amount of greenhouse gases generated to heat and cool commercial buildings, but also because it assists building owners and tenants to meet the increasing pressure to be more energy efficient.

“Unfortunately, energy efficiency initiatives require capital, have long or uncertain payback periods, and need skilled professionals to implement and manage them,” Mr Zimmerman explains.

“All of these issues are made more difficult by the real estate sector’s financial slump, which means building owners have limited capacity to invest in new technology, people or projects. As a solution which enables building owners to get more value out of existing infrastructure, and significantly reduce energy use without capital expenditures or new projects, BuildingIQ addresses many of these issues,” says Mr Zimmerman.

BuildingIQ in action

Lend Lease Australia announced earlier this year that they will be trialling the BuildingIQ software. The software has several other Australian pilot customers including Investa and the City of Perth.