Catherine McKenna, minister of Environment and Climate Change, visited the Carleton University campus on Friday, July 26 to announce that Burak Gunay and fellow researchers Liam O’Brien and Scott Bucking have received $510,000 in funding from the NRCan Green Infrastructure Fund to develop new data-mining tools that will improve building energy efficiency, occupant comfort, health, and workplace productivity.
“Carleton continues to take the lead on advances in sustainable construction,” said Rafik Goubran, vice-president (Research and International). “This research program will maximize the energy efficiency of buildings and ensure that the potential for green construction is realized on our campus and beyond.”
This project will apply state of the art data mining techniques to analyze operational data sources like building automation systems, energy meter networks, computerized maintenance management systems and Wi-Fi traffic data. This data will be used to detect operational abnormalities and sub systems that may not be working correctly. By combining these disparate data sources, insights that were not possible before will be revealed.
“There is a lot of focus on designing energy efficient buildings, but even well designed buildings can function inefficiently unless further quality assurance measures are taken,” said Gunay, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Without the proper tools it is very difficult for building managers to diagnose problems and correct them. This tool will provide operators with key metrics and insights into building functionality.”
Frequently, even new buildings are not operated in a manner that realizes their full potential and often even very small interventions can make large differences. These interventions include correcting programming errors in the environmental controls. This new technology has already been applied to Carleton’s Canal building and has resulted in saving approximately 30 per cent in office energy use. Gunay and his team are now looking to bring this tool to buildings off campus.
In addition, CopperTree Analytics, Delta Controls, Sensible Building Science and Bentall GreenOak each provided $30,000 of in-kind support totaling $120,000.
Monday, July 29, 2019 in Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty, Industry Collaboration, Research, Smart Buildings and Homes, Sustainability
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