Implementation of novel occupant-centric control strategies in commercial buildings

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The proposed project will strengthen the partnership between researchers at Concordia and Carleton Universities with BrainBox AI, a Montreal-based leader in building automation. The project aims to continue the development of "occupant-centric control" algorithms which balance between energy efficiency and occupant comfort by using machine learning techniques to learn and predict occupant preferences. In particular, this project will also entail deploying the developed algorithms in existing commercial buildings to demonstrate and quantify their effect on reducing energy consumption and improving occupant comfort. Through these real-life applications, the proposed project will identify and address technical and non-technical barriers that may hinder the implementation of advanced control strategies in existing buildings. With access to more than 18 million building square feet of buildings across different sectors in Canada, the partner organization will leverage the outcomes of this research to complement their existing libraries of solutions and algorithms for smart building controls. Ultimately, these technologies will provide significant tangible reductions in buildings' energy use and CO2 emissions for their clients, which will strengthen their position as a global leader in integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) in building operations. Research outcomes can also be easily deployed at minimal capital cost in many of Canada's over half a million commercial buildings, which collectively consume approximately 40% of national energy use. Furthermore, this partnership will provide Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP) with a unique opportunity to gain relevant industry experience that will allow them to fully understand building systems and controls technologies related to their research. They will be able to work with data from real buildings and interact with their systems and components, while gaining interdisciplinary research skills combining building engineering with building sciences; both of which are strongly and urgently needed in the Canadian building industry.