Author: DigiConsult ltd

Are you aiming to reduce your energy consumption together by increasing the reliability and predictability of your electrical system? You can do it smartly with an Energy Management System that let you perfectly get in control of your electrical system to optimize your energy usage. With a smart Energy Management System application, real-time data such as frequency, actual generation, tie-line load flows, and plant units’ controller status lets make an intelligent decision about your electrical system.

 About Energy Management System

Managing your electrical system to maintain the frequency of a Power Distribution System and keeping tie-line power close to the scheduled values along with many other possibilities, are the offering that an energy management system provides you. To be in your set parameters and fluctuating load demands for the perfect functioning of your electrical network along with optimizing your energy system can now be possible with the reliable time data that is available with an application accompanied by an energy management system.

 The smart features accompanied by an energy management system for your electrical system:

•  Economic Dispatch Analysis

With possibilities to automate, manage and schedule your power system, Economic Dispatch software (ED) allocates generation changes of a power system. This helps to reach optimal electrical system operation in order to meet power requirements, steam requirements, and minimize fuel cost per generator. With advanced optimal power flow algorithms, Generation levels of individual units are calculated and dispatched in order to meet the load demand at minimal costs. 

•   Unit Commitment

Unit commitment is about the precision which generators should be started\stopped to meet defined objectives. Minimizing operation cost and improve the lifetime of the generation unit is possible as the load is forecasted in the system and determine the operating schedule for each of the units hourly taking into account startup.

•       Interchange Scheduling Analysis

Interchange Scheduling (IS) helps in scheduling energy transfer. Financial tracking of energy transaction is possible and dedicated electricity power exchange and scheduling, Interchange Scheduling incorporates energy scheduling, transaction management, and energy cost analysis and reporting.

The add-in benefits for your organization with an Energy Management System

•         Helps in cost reduction as you will be only charged for what you use.
• Reduces risk as energy is always under control, there are no excess loads that will prompt short circuits.
•    When energy is perfectly under control, there is no misuse that will create waste but instead, the dependency on the use of rare fossil fuels is highly reduced. 
•         Reduces organisations carbon footprint as using energy management system carbon emissions.
•         Value the importance of energy for our sustainability and treat our clients as our assets and work to offer innovate and unique energy management services to them. For more information contact us now. 

Technology is constantly improving the way the construction industry operates. Smartphones and mobile apps have made communication and collaboration on projects easier. Building Information Modeling improves project visualization, makes scheduling more efficient and reduces waste and rework. One aspect that often goes overlooked is how technology can be leveraged to improve construction site safety. Construction remains one of the deadliest occupations.

This has been changing in the past few years as companies realize that technology can be used to better protect their workers. Here are a few ways that technology is being used to make construction sites safer:

Drones

The commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones, has really taken off ever since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) established rules for their use last year.

In construction, drones are being used on jobsites for everything from site surveying to inspecting structures to creating promotional videos. They are also being used to make construction sites safer.

Drones can be used to quickly conduct jobsite inspections and identify potential hazards each day. They can also be used to monitor workers throughout the day to ensure everyone is working safely. Drones are being used to take photos of as work progresses create as-built models of jobsites to keep everyone informed of the changing work conditions each day.

Exoskeletons

Exoskeletons and power-assist suits are being developed for industrial use so workers can lift and carry objects or use heavy tools for longer periods of time without putting undue stress and strain on the body.

Unpowered devices like those developed by companies like Ekso Bionics and StrongArm Technologies are designed to reduce fatigue and injury and maintain proper posture. These devices use counterweights or redistribute loads to stronger muscles to make lifting and carrying easier.

Powered suits, like those developed by companies like Daewoo and Panasonic, uses sensors and motors to assist workers by reducing back strain and allowing them to lift heavy objects.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality simulators have been used for years to train soldiers, pilots and surgeons and could be used the same way to train workers on everything from operating cranes and excavators to doing welding and masonry work.

Safety training and equipment operator training are two areas where virtual reality could impact construction in the future. Workers could get exposure to environments such as confined spaces or working at height in a controlled environment.

Wearables

Human Condition, a New York-based think tank, is developing construction wearables with a focus on eliminating injuries and fatalities caused by OSHA’s Fatal Four Hazards: falls, struck-by, electrocution and caught-in/between.

They’ve designed a safety vest and hard hat that integrates low-cost wearable computers, sensors, GPS and real-time locating systems (RTLS). The hard hat would be equipped with solar chargers and the safety vest would have kinetic chargers to power them. The safety vest includes an airbag collar that would inflate should a worker fall and would monitor vital signs and repetitive motions.

The hard hat has built-in LEDs that does double duty as both a work light and a safety beacon. The data gathered from these devices can be accessed through the cloud with a mobile interface in real-time so site supervisors can keep an eye on all the workers at a jobsite.

Smart clothing, or e-textiles, that can monitor vital signs like respiration rate, skin temperature, and heart rate will also make their way to the construction site. These wearables will be able to monitor a worker’s posture, track movements, determine if they are suffering from fatigue and whether they are intoxicated or under the influence of narcotics. Keeping a watchful eye on workers can help predict an accident before it occurs.

Self-Driving Trucks & Heavy Equipment

Crash trucks equipped with attenuators have been used for years in highway work zones to protect workers and motorists. Royal Truck & Equipment has developed an autonomous Truck Mounted Attenuator (TMA) truck to protect the one person still at risk when crash trucks are used, the driver.

The driverless crash trucks follow a lead vehicle that would transmit GPS information back to the crash truck instructing it when to turn, brake and what speed to travel.

Heavy equipment manufacturers, like Komatsu and Caterpillar, have machines capable of operating autonomously or being controlled remotely. This type of technology allows operators to be completely removed from the machine to eliminate injuries from potential rollovers and other hazards. In addition to the safety aspect, these intelligent machines are also highly efficient so productivity can remain high.

Site Sensors

Companies like SmartSite and Pillar Technologies have developed site sensors that can be deployed across a construction site to monitor things like temperature, noise levels, dust particulates and volatile organic compounds to help limit exposure to workers.

The sensors are mounted throughout the construction site and can alert workers immediately when they are at risk from permissible exposure levels being reached. Data from the sensors are collected and can be analyzed to mitigate exposure levels and keep workers safe and stay compliant with OSHA regulations.

Circuit breakers manage the flow of electricity and protect us from the immense hazards of surging electrical currents. The modern world has outgrown the risks and constraints of traditional circuit breakers. Unlock a future where power is smartly controlled and exponentially safer.  In response to enhanced electric installation, a Solid State Circuit Breaker provides high reliability and full range of protections.

Soli State Circuit Breaker

The solid-state circuit breaker (SSCB) is a device used in the power system in order to provide protection when a short circuit or fault current occurs. SSCB is controlled through the current/time characteristics of that used in the conventional mechanical circuit breakers, in addition, to limit the high fault current levels (fault current limiter) especially with the proliferation of the distributed generation and the associated fault current level increase.

In order to achieve the safety, high availability, and high power quality of the system when a short circuit or an overload occurs, SSCBs have been proposed to keep the system limitations in a lower distribution level. The SSCB  is a circuit breaker with solid state devices connected in the circuit, in order to protect the power system components abnormal operating condition.The SSCB is a new technology that can be used to implement various functions and to offer several advantages as:
– Limiting the fault current
– For different voltage and current levels, stacking the appropriate module numbersto perform the appropriate
adoption
– If any problem happened to one of the modules in the SSCB, the broken one can be replaced by a spare module, rather than replacing the whole circuit breaker in the complete switch.Therefore, the maintenance and testing of the circuit will be simplified with less time wasting
– SSCB is a device with no arcing and switch bounce
– SSCB offers a higher reliability
– SSCB can switch in a range of microseconds, as opposed to millisecond for the mechanical circuit breaker
– For a lower voltage level, the individual modules used are small that will makethe design of SSCBsimple.

Imagine what the job site would be like today without technology. Without power tools, we’d be cutting boards and drilling holes by hand. Without heavy equipment, labourers would be excavating sites and digging trenches with shovels and pickaxes. Without the elevator, buildings would only be a few stories tall. The point is, technological advancements have always driven construction forward, so it’s odd that so many companies are slow to adopt new tech. Technology has made construction sites safer and workers more efficient. It has allowed us to increase productivity, improve collaboration, and tackle more complex projects.

Major areas where technology is impacting and improving the construction industry:

Productivity
According to research from McKinsey & Company, construction productivity has remained flat for decades. The traditional method of design-bid-build makes construction disjointed and siloed. Every construction site is different, presenting its own unique set of challenges and risks. This makes it difficult to streamline processes and increase productivity the way industries like manufacturing and retail have been able to do.

Software & Mobile Apps

Today there are software and mobile solutions to help manage every aspect of a construction project. From preconstruction to scheduling, from project management and field reporting to managing your back office, there’s a software solution out there to help streamline your processes and improve productivity. Most software solutions are cloud-based, allowing changes and updates to documents, schedules, and other management tools to be made in real time, facilitating better communication and collaboration.

Mobile technology allows for real-time data collection and transmission between the jobsite and project managers in the back office. Cloud-based solutions enable on-site employees to submit timecards, expense reports, requests for information (RFIs), work records, and other verified documentation. This can save hundreds of hours per year in data entry and automatically organizes critical files—no more shuffling through files looking for old reports.

Offsite Construction

Offsite construction is typically used on projects with repetitive floorplans or layouts in their design such as apartment buildings, hotels, hospitals, dormitories, prisons, and schools. Offsite is performed in a controlled environment and it works similar to an auto manufacturing plant. At each station, workers have all the tools and materials to consistently perform their task, whether that be constructing a wall frame or installing electrical wiring. This assembly plant method of construction reduces waste and allows workers to be more productive.

Offsite construction typically comes in two forms: modular and prefabricated. With modular construction, entire rooms can be built complete with MEP, finishes, and fixtures already installed. They can be rooms as small as bathrooms or modules can be fitted together onsite to create larger spaces like apartment units. The modular units are transported to the construction site and then inserted and attached to the structural frame.

With prefabricated construction, building components are built offsite and then assembled or installed once they have been transported to the construction site. Prefabricated building components cover everything from framing, internal and external wall panels, door and window assemblies, floor systems, and multi-trade racks, which are panels with all the ductwork, wiring and plumbing packaged together.

AI & Machine Learning

Construction firms are now using data to make better decisions, increase productivity, improve jobsite safety and reduce risks. With artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning systems, firms can turn the mountains of data they have collected over the years on projects to predict future outcomes on projects and gain a competitive advantage when estimating and bidding on construction projects.

AI can improve worker productivity by reducing the amount of time wasted moving about the construction site to retrieve tools, materials, and equipment to perform certain tasks. Workers are tracked throughout the day using smartphones or wearables.

Sensors installed on materials and equipment track how everything else is moving about the construction site. Once enough data sets are collected, AI can analyze how workers move about and interact with the site to come up with solutions to reorganize the placement of tools and materials to make them more accessible to workers and reduce downtime.

Deep-learning algorithms are then used to identify and report errors in work performed. This can be anything from the excavation and site work to the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. The AI can recognize a building component based on its shape, size and location even if only a portion of the component is visible.

Safety & Training
As technology adoption continues to ramp up in the construction industry, one area getting a lot of attention is improving safety. Of the 4,963 worker deaths in 2016, 991 were in construction. Worker safety should be the number one priority of every construction company and technology solutions are making it easier to properly train and monitor workers to prevent accidents and reduce the rate of serious injuries and worker deaths.

Augmented & Virtual Reality

Safety training and equipment operator training are two areas where virtual reality (VR) could have a strong impact on the construction industry. With VR, workers could get exposure to environments such as confined spaces or working at height in a safe, controlled environment.

VR simulators have been used for years to train soldiers, pilots, and surgeons and could be used in the same way to train workers on everything from operating cranes and excavators to doing welding and masonry work.

Augmented reality (AR) is another technology that can greatly improve safety on the construction site. Whether it’s allowing for a more detailed safety plan to be developed or providing training on heavy equipment using actual equipment on real sites with augmented hazards, there are a number of ways that AR can be deployed on the jobsite.

Workers could walk to a specific area of a jobsite and have a safety checklist, specific to the task at hand, pop up on a display integrated into a smart hard hat or safety goggles to make sure they have the proper personal protective equipment on and are performing their tasks safely. Safety managers and trainers could monitor exactly what the workers are seeing and walk them through tasks as they work.

Wearables

Wearables are being used to monitor workers and their environment to make jobsite safer. Wearable tech in construction is being embedded into apparel and personal protective equipment (PPE) already common on construction sites like hard hats, gloves, safety vests and work boots.

Construction wearables are being outfitted with biometrics and environmental sensors, GPS and location trackers, Wi-Fi, voltage detectors, and other sensors to monitor workers’ movements, repetitive motions, posture, and slips and falls. Geofencing allows site or safety supervisors to establish restricted or hazardous areas that will alert workers with a combination of alarms and lights that they have entered an area that is off limits.

Smart clothing, or e-textiles, that can monitor vital signs like respiration rate, skin temperature, and heart rate will also make their way to the construction site. These wearables will be able to monitor a worker’s posture, track movements, determine if they are suffering from fatigue and whether they are intoxicated or under the influence of narcotics. Keeping a watchful eye on workers can help predict an accident before it occurs.

Site Sensors

Site sensors that can be deployed across a construction site to monitor things like temperature, noise levels, dust particulates, and volatile organic compounds to help limit exposure to workers.

The sensors are mounted throughout the construction site and can alert workers immediately when they are at risk from permissible exposure levels being reached. Data from the sensors are collected and can be analyzed to mitigate exposure levels and keep workers safe and stay compliant with OSHA regulations.

Labor Shortages
As a result of the housing crash and the Great Recession, over 2.3 million workers left the construction industry through layoffs, early retirement, or to pursue careers in other industries. While job growth in the industry has been strong the past few years, there are still areas of the country feeling the pinch of a skilled labor shortage.

Demand for workers in construction is expected to grow significantly through the next decade. The Bureau of Labor Statistics project construction employment growth to be 11% from 2016 through 2026. Younger workers, who lack the skills and experience of their veteran peers, can benefit from the technology being deployed on jobsites today.

Drones

Drones are being used on jobsites in a number of ways. Drones can be used to quickly conduct jobsite inspections and identify potential hazards each day. They can also be used to monitor workers throughout the day to ensure everyone is working safely. Drones are being used to take photos of as work progresses to create as-built models of jobsites to keep everyone informed of the changing work conditions each day.

Drones are also being used to tackle more dangerous jobs, like bridge and building inspections. This won’t eliminate the need for workers, but it will mean that workers will need to be trained on how to use the technology to perform these tasks.

Robots

Once set up, these robots can work continuously to complete tasks faster than human workers without needing to take breaks or go home for a good night’s sleep. Robots don’t get tired from lifting bricks, applying mortar and setting them in place or constantly bending over to tie rebar.

In both these examples, humans are still needed to perform some of the work. Both still require workers to set up the robots and get them started. For the bricklaying robot, a mason is needed to oversee the work, ensure bricks are correctly placed and clean up the mortar after they’ve been set. The rebar tying robot still needs humans to correctly place and space the rebar before it gets set in motion.

Instead of replacing workers, most construction robots are there to aid and augment a worker’s performance, enabling them to be more productive.

Autonomous Heavy Equipment

Autonomous heavy equipment, using similar technology for self-driving cars, is currently being used on jobsites to perform excavation, grading, and sitework. This type of technology allows operators to be completely removed from the machine, allowing companies to do the same amount of work with fewer workers.

These machines use sensors, drones, and GPS to navigate the construction site and conduct sitework based on 3D models of the terrain to accurately excavate and grade the site. Augmented GPS, a combination of onsite base stations and satellites, can be used to geofence the site and allow autonomous equipment to move around the site with precision accuracy.

The benefit of adopting technology like drones, robots, and autonomous or self-controlled equipment are twofold. First, within the next decade, workers entering the workforce that has grown up using tablets and smartphones their entire life, so operating these machines will be second nature to them. Second, younger workers, regardless of what field they go into, are going to expect to be using technology to perform their jobs.

Determining occupancy is a major task in building management (intelligent buildings) such as optimizing
user comfort, security, and energy control. Lower energy consumption is not only from minimizing
the energy wasted in the lighting of the unoccupied area and switching of electric loads but also from minimizing
the energy wasted cooling or heating of these sections. Smart occupancy sensors can adapt to changing
activity levels and “human movement”. A smart occupancy sensor can learn the variation in the activity level
of the occupants with respect to time of the day. With this information, it can change the TD (time
delay) with the time of the day. Experiments conducted have shown that more energy can be saved by
using smart occupancy sensor as compared to non-adapting fixed TD sensors.

For smart technologies to proliferate in the commercial buildings market, building owners and operators must understand their value proposition. Incentivizing smart technologies through energy efficiency programs could help expedite their uptake. Further, packaging them with common energy efficiency measures might allow them to piggyback on known energy savings and the quicker paybacks of standard measures. Packages also present an
opportunity to integrate interdependent measures in a single installation.

Building Technology
Building Technologies HVAC
State-of-the-art heat exchangers allow you to reduce your energy consumption and save money while at the same time optimizing the indoor climate and your comfort level in your home or office. Differential pressure sensors create a continuous air flow in the ventilation system, which means that the energy contained in the exhaust air can be transferred to the supply air. If the supply air is warmer than the air temperature in the room, it is cooled using this energy transfer; if it is too cool, it is heated. This eliminates the need for external energy sources in order to optimally temper the incoming air.

This is just one example of a sustainable building technology energy system. Temperature and humidity measurement in buildings also opens up a wide range of possibilities to conserve energy. The term “smart home” stands for the digital networking and automation of a house. This technology markedly improves inhabitants’ quality of life and increases security in the home while also boosting energy efficiency. Take, for example, automatic ventilation or heating that is automated based on room usage.

How it works

1. Collect energy and environmental data

Smart cities are no longer a futuristic concept. In cities such as Berlin, they are fully operational today and pushing the bounds of how the IoT links business, public infrastructure and people all together.  Many cities are introducing a wide range of connected smart city applications, including multiple installations of surveillance cameras, connected waste management control, lighting, parking, traffic control, public transport, and pollution and weather monitoring. We’re also seeing innovations like remote patient care from healthcare providers, improvements to production line efficiency from manufacturers, fleet tracking and control from logistics firms: the possibilities of the smart city are many, varied and growing.

Yet, the growth of smart cities will slow if resources are not invested in developing the fundamental backbone of these projects: effective mobile coverage systems. This includes 4G and eventually 5G coverage, as well as low-power wide area network (LPWAN) connectivity which can support hundreds of millions of smart city sensing devices at a low cost.

The connectivity problem
However, where opportunity lies, so does adversity. The smart city connectivity problem is split between three major stakeholders: operators must provide a coverage and capacity solutions to multiple sites across a city within a budget; venue owners/businesses must also provide coverage and capacity to ensure they do not lose out on revenue from customers due to poor mobile connection in their facilities; and local governments need to work with both the operators and venue owners to ensure coverage is supplied across the city to develop sustainable, competitive smart city infrastructure.

The urban environment exacerbates the challenges of deploying coverage. Firstly, building materials used to construct densely-populated smart cities often contain reflective and dense materials that can prohibit all Radio Frequency (RF) energy from propagating within many structures. Green building initiatives also have requirements that impact RF signals. They are often attenuated through increased use of Low-E glass (metals in glass) and reflective (foil backed) insulation.

Basements and parking garages are further examples, as they are usually surrounded by concrete and rebar preventing good RF signals reaching inside. Equally, while a building itself might be constructed with materials that support strong RF signals, buildings within a dense urban area can often be shielded by neighbouring buildings causing poor coverage.

The solution for smart connectivity in cities

An energy efficient, cost-effective and scalable solution which will support smart city models, IoT and M2M applications and mobile users is needed. Furthermore, networks must be able to provide robust public safety communications for emergency services to prevent harm and keep people safe in these new ‘smart’ environments.

Smart cities place incredibly weighty coverage demands on networks. As people and businesses grow increasingly connected to each other and technology through the IoT, service providers need to invest wisely in technology which not only allows for a better experience for all subscribers but also ensures a robust communications network is in place for the emergency services.

Ensuring long-term connectivity for smart cities

Driven by sensors, networks and data-analytics, connected cities are centred on real-time information. To support this, sensors are deployed across a range of environmental conditions – for example in streetlights, smart utility grids, and chemical detection systems which provide vital statistics on how the city is performing as well as areas in which they need to be more efficient. With a physical infrastructure – such as the IoT – this can enable service providers to effectively analyse and make use of the generated data. However, if they are to achieve their full potential, these units will need to be protected from the environmental elements. Whilst these systems and sensors are intelligent, it remains essential to maintain connectivity at all times in order to keep the network on and functioning. Otherwise, these new cities will face device and network failure that could be have significant consequences for its citizens.

The potential applications of machine learning and AI in construction are vast. Requests for information, open issues, and change orders are standard in the industry. Robotics, AI, and the Internet of Things can reduce building costs by up to 20 percent. These robots use cameras to track the work as it progresses. AI is being used to plan the routing of electrical and plumbing systems in modern buildings. Other sectors have used AI and other technologies to transform their productivity performance. Construction, in comparison, has progressed at a glacial pace.

AI and Machine Learning for Smart Construction

The potential applications of machine learning and AI in construction are vast. Requests for information, open issues, and change orders are standard in the industry. Machine learning is like a smart assistant that can scrutinize this mountain of data. It then alerts project managers about the critical things that need their attention. Several applications already use AI in this way. Its benefits range from mundane filtering of spam emails to advanced safety monitoring.

AI in Construction
1. Prevent cost overruns

Most mega projects go over budget despite employing the best project teams. Artificial Neural Networks are used on projects to predict cost overruns based on factors such as project size, contract type and the competence level of project managers. Historical data such as planned start and end dates are used by predictive models to envision realistic timelines for future projects. AI helps staff remotely access real-life training material which helps them enhance their skills and knowledge quickly. This reduces the time taken to onboard new resources onto projects. As a result, project delivery is expedited.

2. AI for Better Design of Buildings Through Generative Design

Building Information Modeling is a 3D model-based process that gives architecture, engineering and construction professionals insights to efficiently plan, design, construct and manage buildings and infrastructure. In order to plan and design the construction of a building, the 3D models need to take into consideration the architecture, engineering, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) plans and the sequence of activities of the respective teams. The challenge is to ensure that the different models from the sub-teams do not clash with each other. The industry is trying to use machine learning in the form of generative design to identify and mitigate clashes between the different models generated by the different teams in the planning and design phase to prevent rework. There is software that uses machine learning algorithms to explore all the variations of a solution and generates design alternatives. It leverages machine learning to specifically create 3D models of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems while simultaneously making sure that the entire routes for MEP systems do not clash with the building architecture while it learns from each iteration to come up with an optimal solution.

3. Risk Mitigation

Every construction project has some risk that comes in many forms such as Quality, Safety, Time, and Cost Risk. The larger the project, the more risk, as there are multiple sub-contractors working on different trades in parallel on job sites. There are AI and machine learning solutions today that general contractors use to monitor and prioritize risk on the job site, so the project team can focus their limited time and resources on the biggest risk factors. AI is used to automatically assign priority to issues. Subcontractors are rated based on a risk score so construction managers can work closely with high-risk teams to mitigate risk.

4. Project Planning

An AI Startup launched in 2018 with the promise that its robots and artificial intelligence hold the key to solving late and over budget construction projects. The company uses robots to autonomously capture 3D scans of construction sites and then feeds that data into a deep neural network that classifies how far along different sub-projects are. If things seem off track, the management team can step in to deal with small problems before they become major issues. Algorithms of the future will use an AI technique known as “reinforcement learning.” This technique allows algorithms to learn based on trial and error. It can assess endless combinations and alternatives based on similar projects. It aids in project planning since it optimizes the best path and corrects itself over time.

5. AI Will Make Job sites More Productive

There are companies that are starting to offer self-driving construction machinery to perform repetitive tasks more efficiently than their human counterparts, such as pouring concrete, bricklaying, welding, and demolition. Excavation and prep work is being performed by autonomous or semi-autonomous bulldozers, which can prepare a job site with the help of a human programmer to exact specifications. This frees up human workers for the construction work itself and reduces the overall time required to complete the project. Project managers can also track job site work in real time. They use facial recognition, onsite cameras, and similar technologies to assess worker productivity and conformance to procedures.

6. AI for Construction Safety

Construction workers are killed on the job five times more often than other laborers. According to OSHA, the leading causes of private sector deaths (excluding highway collisions) in the construction industry were falls, followed by struck by an object, electrocution, and caught-in/between. A Boston-based General Contractor with annual sales of $3 Billion is developing an algorithm that analyzes photos from its job sites, scans them for safety hazards such as workers not wearing protective equipment and correlates the images with its accident records. The company says it can potentially compute risk ratings for projects so safety briefings can be held when an elevated threat is detected.

7. AI Will Address Labor Shortages

Labor shortage and a desire to boost the industry’s low productivity are compelling construction firms to invest in AI and data science. A 2017 McKinsey report says that construction firms could boost productivity by as much as 50 percent through real-time analysis of data. Construction companies are starting to use AI and machine learning to better plan for distribution of labor and machinery across jobs. A robot constantly evaluating job progress and the location of workers and equipment enables project managers to tell instantly which job sites have enough workers and equipment to complete the project on schedule, and which might be falling behind where additional labor could be deployed. Experts expect construction robots to become more intelligent and autonomous with AI techniques.

8. Off-site Construction

Construction companies are increasingly relying on off-site factories staffed by autonomous robots that piece together components of a building, which are then pieced together by human workers on-site. Structures like walls can be completed assembly-line style by autonomous machinery more efficiently than their human counterparts, leaving human workers to finish the detail work like Plumbing, HVAC and Electrical systems when the structure is fitted together.

9. AI and Big Data in Construction

At a time when a massive amount of data is being created every day, AI Systems are exposed to an endless amount of data to learn from and improve every day. Every job site becomes a potential data source for AI. Data generated from images captured from mobile devices, drone videos, security sensors, building information modeling (BIM), and others have become a pool of information. This presents an opportunity for construction industry professionals and customers to analyze and benefit from the insights generated from the data with the help of AI and machine learning systems.

10. AI for Post-Construction

Building managers can use AI long after the construction of a building is complete. Building information modelling, or BIM, stores information about the structure of the building. AI can be used to monitor developing problems and even offers solutions to prevent problems.

The Future of AI in Construction
Robotics, AI, and the Internet of Things can reduce building costs by up to 20 percent. Engineers can don virtual reality goggles and send mini-robots into buildings under construction. These robots use cameras to track the work as it progresses. AI is being used to plan the routing of electrical and plumbing systems in modern buildings. Companies are using AI to develop safety systems for worksites. AI is being used to track the real-time interactions of workers, machinery, and objects on the site and alert supervisors of potential safety issues, construction errors, and productivity issues.

• Intelligent and Efficient Smart grid is capable of sensing system overloads and rerouting power to prevent or minimize a potential outage. It is efficient and potentially able to meet increasing consumer demand without adding any infrastructure.
•  Accommodating Due to its robustness, a smart grid can accommodate energy from fuel sources as well as RE sources and adopt any new technologies for a climate-friendly society.
• Reduce Global Warming Possible to integrate large-scale RE into the grid that reduces global warming as well as GHG emission.
• Repairing and Maintenance Automatic maintenance and operation increase the efficiency of the power network. Moreover, predictive maintenance and self-healing reduce system disturbances.
• Reliability Improves power quality and reliability as well as enhances the capacity of the existing network.
• Distributed Generation Accommodates distributed power sources efficiently which reduces energy costs, GHG emissions and energy crisis issues worldwide.
• Consumer Focus Consumers can customize their energy uses based on individual needs, electricity prices and environmental concerns.
• Security With the adoption of security features in the smart grid, the network is safer from cyber-attack and any unwanted tampering and natural disaster. 1.9. Quality-Focused Ensures power quality of the network by reducing voltage fluctuation (sag, swell and spikes) and harmonic effects in the network.
• Technology New concepts and technologies will be developed that enhance power system infrastructure and accommodate new opportunities in innovation.
• Socio-Economic Development This new technology will open new doors in the power sector and communication arena. It will play an active role in socio-economic development as well as create job opportunities.

Smart grid promotes energy saving

•  Improve the utilization efficiency of power generation resources by optimizing scheduling
  Optimization scheduling technologies have been already extensively applied in renewable energy
  generation such as wind, solar, PV systems and distributed generation.  proposes a novel solution for
  generation scheduling problem in power systems with a large capacity of grid-connected wind energy.
•  Reduce line loss by optimizing reactive power compensation With the development of high voltage and long-distance transmission systems, reactive power in power lines is increasing rapidly, causing problems such as voltage loss and deterioration of power quality. It is significant to utilize reactive compensation to regulate voltage and improve the power quality of the power system. In a smart grid, main technologies for reactive power compensation include capacitor control and FACTS. Intelligent reactive power compensation technologies by capacitor control include network communication technology, zero cutting technology, etc.
•  Improve the utilization efficiency of electrical equipment by demand response (DR) DR is a market behaviour which makes a response to market price or incentive mechanism to change ordinary electric consumption. Advanced information, control and communication technologies are integrated with the smart grid, which provides strong technical support to DR projects. Key techniques of DR
  are as follows:

1.  Smart meters, record the real-time data on the electricity use and provide data support for the DR.
2.  Two-way communication technology can complete real-time and high-speed information interaction.
3. Home domain network, enhance the user participation in DR project.
4.  User measurement data management, improve the accuracy of load forecasting and help to formulate
   reasonable DR project. Improve the power consuming efficiency

• Smart grid improves the power consumption efficiency of power users . The smart grid provides all
  kinds of the necessary information for electric power users, such as current and historical electricity
  consumption, carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption of electrical energy, instant demand,
  environment temperature, humidity, and illuminance, etc. The electricity information is fed back to the
  users, which helps the users adjust the power consumption mode, change the concept of power
  consumption to improve the efficiency, and promotes the access of distributed power to the grid as well,
  so as to achieve smart interaction and green energy saving.
• Energy sustainability contributes to climate and environment sustainability
  Climate warming influences human living conditions and natural environment, which is the basis for
  social and economic development, at the same time, the rapid development of the society aggravates the environmental pollution, and also GHG emissions that result in climate warming. Climate change has
  negative impacts on ecosystem services, human health and many other areas. Climate and environment
  sustainability have strong coupling with energy sustainability. The sustainable climate and environment
  are helpful for realizing the efficient utilization of energy supply and security, energy sustainability has a
  closed-loop positive feedback effect on the climate and environmental sustainability.

Building technology is the largest consumer of energy after transport and power generation. Heating, cooling and lighting in residential and office buildings make up about 40 percent of the energy consumed in a building. Smart buildings are key in a world where ongoing urbanization will force building owners to strive for more efficiency and sustainability. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to enhance commercial building automation by sensing and analyzing information about where and how people use the space, while maintaining highest standards for privacy and data security. Intelligent Building Control systems to residential and non-residential buildings, can create energy savings of up to 50 percent.

Artificial Intelligence puts the ‘smart’ in smart buildings

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to fundamentally change the way we use technology to solve challenging problems. From the potential of self-driving cars to virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, we are already starting to see a glimpse of what the future holds. While it is still early on for many consumer AI applications, AI is being deployed for a range of business applications that have the potential to be big revenue generators and money savers.

IoT by increasing the intelligence of sensor solutions used in:

• Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)
• Gas and water supply systems
• Temperature sensors
• Humidity sensors
• Air quality sensors
• Vibration sensors
• Early problem detection
• Variable air volume systems

AI continues to infiltrate the market, below are ways in which it can be used to make buildings smarter.

1. Predictive Energy Optimization
When it comes to reducing energy consumption, buildings are reliant on after-the-fact reporting, essentially analyzing what energy was used and then implementing a change in the hope that less energy will be used next time. AI and predictive analytics are disrupting this in favor of a moe proactive approach.

Controlling room temperature within a building is like controlling speed when riding a bicycle. Many forces change the speed of a bicycle when it is in motion.

In the case of a heating and cooling (HVAC) system, there are numerous thermal loads that influence the temperature of a space. To cool a room, the system blows cold air into the space to decrease the temperature.

However, other thermal loads such as human activity, solar radiation, and heat from electronics increase room temperature. When these loads add up to zero, the room temperature is fixed.

AI-based energy management platforms can identify the “uphills” and “downhills” for building operations by applying AI in the form of machine learning to advanced models of a building’s thermal characteristics.

It will identify when it makes sense to precool the building to avoid energy use during hours when energy is at the highest price (the uphill), or when to decrease cooling due to periods of inactivity within a building based on historical usage patterns (the downhill).

2. Preventative Maintenance and Fault Detection
In addition to optimizing day-to-day operations, AI and machine learning can be relied upon for fault detection. AI techniques are well-suited in learning the relationship between input and output variables using only data, without mathematical models. This technology can excel at analyzing data from various systems and IoT devices within a building to identify anomalies and inconsistencies. After identifying these symptoms, AI can be used to target a diagnosis.

In an ideal world, data anomalies would be automatically detected by AI-algorithms, and then immediately triaged and to identify the root cause. However, within a building there is a deeper issue of resource constraint. There are often a lot more subtle and qualitative aspects to detection issues that require a person to filter.

3. Improving Tenant Comfort
Using AI to optimize building operations and prevent faults will inherently create a more comfortable environment for tenants. Exploring the relationship between comfort, direct tenant feedback, and AI is perhaps one of the more recent developments in smart buildings.  Companies are actively racing to find the best ways to personalize comfort for individuals within a shared workplace. While there is no clear-cut path to how this will develop in the future, it is certain that humans act as the ultimate sensor within a building.

Thus, integration of mobile apps – and perhaps wearables – will likely have a large role in the way tenants interact with buildings.

The future of AI in buildings is bright but human expertise will always be needed to properly utilize and direct the technology.

The building space has been traditionally slow to adopt new technologies but embracing AI-based solutions is inevitable as it capitalizes on the boom in the adoption of IoT-driven devices within facilities.