Technology strengthens energy-saving opportunities in commercial buildings

Three key takeaways:

• We offer Smart Eco-energy solutions with Analytics and Control (BMS) systems to help customers understand their energy consumption in commercial buildings and act on it
• It enables them to comply with the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive requirement, which requires all large non-residential buildings to have BMS systems by 2025 and beyond
• Orange Business is committed to providing customers with a new generation of plug-and-play BMSs that innovates with IoT technologies, making it easier and more cost effective

Forty percent of energy in the European Union is consumed by buildings. To reduce this figure, the European Union has mandated the adoption of Building Automation Control Systems (BACS) in tertiary buildings, including offices, retail points and hotels, from January 2025 to improve efficiency. The goal is to make energy consumption more visible and controllable. This is a real opportunity for enterprises to save energy, reduce costs and better respond to environmental conditions.

Today, around 80% of commercial buildings do not have building management systems. Building Management Systems (BMSs) and analytics will enable enterprises to take control of their energy usage and fully understand their energy consumption by identifying high-energy use areas and malfunctioning equipment. Energy management is also vital in addressing the climate crisis and enabling enterprises to meet their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals.

Using data to improve energy efficiency

Enterprises waste at least 10% of their energy daily due to inefficiencies, severely impacting the bottom line. Many lack real-time data and monitoring gaps, making it difficult for enterprises to pinpoint energy issues and set out a strategy for improvement.

With Smart Eco-energy Analytics, Orange Business has made it easy to harvest and analyze data using its data and IoT expertise to overcome this hurdle. The self-managed solution focuses on automating real-time data collection and analysis to provide valuable insights from mixed data sources, including gas, electricity, water and various influencing factors.

Thanks to its extensive library of connectors and APIs with Distribution Network Operators, smart meters databases, energy and water suppliers, energy systems, IoT devices and other data providers, it makes it possible to collect data at a very low cost. The data is used to provide actionable insights through advanced analytics, so enterprises can better plan expenditures and spot opportunities to reduce energy waste.

Intuitive dashboards and alerting systems can analyze energy usage and flag anomalies and energy-saving opportunities. In addition to compliance reporting, data can be used to benchmark invoices for price optimization, assess Energy Performance Contracts (EPC) or verify energy-system efficiency.

A new generation of IoT solutions to expand use cases

On top of energy-efficiency use cases, the analytics solution can be interfaced with Orange Business Live Objects, a secure, scalable platform explicitly designed to manage IoT devices and data. It is multi-protocol-compatible with various communications technologies, from 3G and 4G to dedicated IoT LTE-M or LoRa sensors. This helps enrich the value of the analytics application to manage additional use cases, such as energy sub-metering, air quality management, public lighting and domestic hot water monitoring to prevent legionella risk, for example.

Affordable modular BMS systems remove barriers to entry

Since heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for more than 60% of energy consumption in commercial buildings, there is a need to directly manage these systems and ensure optimum operations with automated solutions.

Orange Business offers a light, modular and affordable plug-and-play BMS solution called Smart Eco-energy Control to address this. This new generation of BMS utilizes IoT technologies.

The solution provides much lower installation costs and greater agility by utilizing wireless technology. It has been designed to be straightforward to integrate and provide intuitive interfaces and personalized controls. Enterprises can now manage their systems and operate their properties as smart buildings without substantial upfront investment.

Orange has been rolling out the solution in its stores across France and is already seeing the benefits of better understanding its buildings’ energy consumption behavior. It has demonstrated that automating energy system management generates an average of 20% savings.

Making commercial buildings smarter

With growing concerns over the health of our planet and the escalating cost of energy, together with increased legislation, there is a considerable push toward making buildings more energy-efficient and sustainable. Data, AI and IoT management platforms like Smart Eco-energy Analytics and Smart Eco-energy Control are pushing the boundaries of reducing energy waste and building a sustainable future for us all by making smart decision-making possible.

Please contact your account team to receive a recommendation that best suits your needs.

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