ACTIVITIES :: Sustainable Growth :: 2nd Workshop on eeBuildings Data Models

2nd Workshop on eeBuildings Data Models

>27 October 2011, Sophia Antipolis, France

This eeBuildings Data Models 2nd workshop has put together European leaders, many running research activities under FP7, working in the area of Buildings Energy Efficiency semantic interoperability.

Buildings are responsible for some 40% of the energy consumption in Europe. Along its lifecycle, Energy Efficiency at Buildings is managed by different IT tools. At the design phase, architects use CAD systems, now enhanced with energy efficiency software. Ideally, their Energy Modelling data should be exported to the Building Energy Management Systems that optimize energy consumption at operational stage. In turn these systems need to obtain data from sensor clouds and energy meters, and be able to command intelligent white goods and HVAC systems. To facilitate an incremental investment of consumers in energy management appliances a strong plug and play principle is needed. In short time, micro and mini renewable sources will be common at every building and need to be integrated into the system as well. Finally, consumers, having renewable installations, will trade with the Smart Grid their energy consumption or sales with a language that needs to be independent of the energy provider.

The requirements of interoperability between all these IT tools are therefore high, and the discussions very blurred with the rivalry of the low level protocols competing for the Home Area Network. Above these HAN protocols, the first condition for Interoperability is to agree on the high level data models; where, in due time, standardization can be easier proposed and achieved. But a too early standardization will constrain innovation.

The first stage is to start having an overview of the mapping case, collecting current practice, and the first step, - to make the data models comparable - , is to have all the semantic approaches at least expressed according ontology engineering methodologies. This 2nd workshop is another milestone at these early stages.