Agora – Smart Building Energy Management Solutions

AGORA, Smart building energy management is key to efficient renovation and sustainability. The Agora project focuses on innovative solutions for energy and water efficiency, enhancing building performance through advanced technologies.

What is AGORA?

Buildings are responsible for most of the European final energy consumption (40%) and represent the greatest potential for energy savings – as 75% of existing buildings in the EU were built during the periods when there were no energy-related regulations. With low demolition rates and low renovation rates, one of the biggest energy efficiency challenges in buildings in Europe, and of Spain in particular, is energy efficient renovation and investment in the current stock of buildings.
Energy and water-efficiency elements for buildings should be implemented in smart buildings with intelligent self-learning management tools. Technologies for active elements of the buildings must be considered in the overall energy efficiency.

AGORA, Problem they aim to solve: Efficient renovation of old buildings

With this project, we want to bring to the market a holistic smart solution capable of promoting a more sustainable energy and water consumption from producer to final consumer. The idea is to extend the energy efficiency function of enControl from the consumer level to the production level by including smart grid functionalities. The Smart Grid category covers solutions for the control and management of power networks and installations.

AGORA Objectives:

Research on algorithms for the prediction of the production of photovoltaic and micro wind power systems for domestic and industrial building self-consumption, energy demand management, with the possibility of storing or selling surpluses to the energy market
Research on passive technologies for decreasing carbon footprint and energy consumption for IAQ.
Characterizing the building envelope’s real energy efficiency by placing sensors in key parts inside and outside the building.
Research on water management possibilities by identifying patterns in water consumption by AI algorithms (SVN, Time series…).
Introduce the energy management module, passive components and water management in an integrate thermoeconomic application for cost accounting
Integration of SRI indicators inside the AGORA platform.
Demonstrate the benefits of the SRI for transforming existing buildings into nZEB
Research on the AGORA platform possibilities for optimizing the building’s overall energy performance, enhancing synergies between different active subcomponents and operating conditions according to an integrated logic, efficiently managed energy, produced locally (photovoltaics/ batteries/ grid) to address immediate demand, thermal or electric storage, feeding in the grid (for PV), according to timing, convenience and opportunity.