Big Data in Energy Saving

The Big Data applications in all kinds of industries have started to be cure for many challenging problems including energy problems in US.

President  Barack Obama  emphasized on the problem and  set a new goal for America during his State of the Union address 2 weeks ago. He challenged states and municipalities, homeowners and businesses, to do more with less when it comes to energy consumption.

“Let’s cut in half the energy wasted by our homes and businesses over the next 20 years,” 

said Obama, adding that states that stepped forward with the best ideas would get financial support from the federal government to make it happen.

According to the article  the buildings are particularly ripe for the picking, accounting for well more than 40 per cent of all energy consumed in North America.

Part of the problem, explains Dan Seto, founder and president of Toronto-based CircuitMeter, is that there is a lack of information about how buildings function on a day-to-day, even minute-by-minute basis. He calls commercial buildings “black boxes” – difficult to see inside without the use of expensive energy-monitoring technologies.

“Once you get granularity of information, it opens up the door,” says Seto.

The company has designed a low-cost and relatively easy-to-install device called WebMeter, which can monitor the electricity flowing through up to 36 individual circuits in a building’s circuit board. Readings from these meters are stored on outside computer servers – “the cloud” – and can be accessed and analyzed any time through the Internet. 

The function of the WebMeter is not to lower the energy bill instantly , but it does gather the huge data from the black-box building, then allows to a near-infinite numbers of applications can surf on top of it.

“It puts a living, breathing building at your fingertips so you can start figuring out how that building is operating per square foot or employee,” says Seto.

So, it seems the future of the energy consumption will not be the matter for the countries with the great help of these huge-data-driven  smart systems built in both business and residential buildings.




http://theenergycollective.com/tyhamilton/187006/big-data-key-unlocking-big-gains-energy-productivity