Digitisation, IoT to make energy affordable

Digitisation enables gradual change in asset performance management, operator’s empowerment making enterprises and facilities more agile to adapt to varying operating conditions. Shrinivas Chebbi, President- Buildings Business, Schneider Electric told Shashi Kumar Sharma of ACE Update how digitisation maximises comfort and energy efficiency in buildings..

How aware is the Indian market for efficient use of energy in sustainable building construction?
Energy and sustainability are inherently linked. Energy efficiency pays dividends by trimming consumption and costs. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), implementing energy-efficiency initiatives is an ideal way to combat climate change as it can reduce CO2 emissions by 38 per cent. Companies that operate efficiency and sustainability initiatives in tandem improve productivity, maximise impact and see a greater return on investment.

The rate of energy consumption in buildings is three times more than the rate in the industry. This trend is a function of both the number of buildings being built and also energy intensity.

Please talk about the latest energy efficiency technology.
Schneider Electric’s products and services are integrated on its digital architecture EcoStruxure. It is an IoT-enabled, plug-and-play, open, interoperable platform, in homes, buildings, data centres, infrastructure and industries.

Smart buildings demand simple integration across systems, easy access to IoT devices, and an environment that keeps buildings and occupants safe. From design, through integration to commissioning, EcoStruxure Building brings best-in-class engineering efficiency within a building. It is combined with asset and energy performance services, enabling lifetime efficiency of a building ensuring productivity and comfort for occupants.

EcoStruxure Building’s open, end-to-end IP architecture enables quick connectivity of IoT devices for faster commissioning and changes, and provides for edge control and collaboration between building systems and third-party systems and devices.

EcoStruxure Building Advisor is designed to improve occupant comfort and asset value while reducing operating costs. It leverages expert field service engineers and remote data scientists to convert data into predictable, actionable insights, driving 33 per cent fewer complaints from occupants, a 29 per cent decrease in unscheduled maintenance and a 20 per cent energy cost reduction on average.

EcoStruxure Building Operations 2.0 is enhanced with cybersecurity and delivers a customised native user experience through a responsive WebStation and mobile apps to engineer once, deploy-all-devices and provide mobile access on the go. Smart connector framework enables systems integrators to build innovative applications and offers actionable insights through simple to set-up reporting and dashboards.

How can your solutions contribute to development of sustainable infrastructure?
We offer integrated efficiency solutions tailored to its customers’ needs, to provide more decarbonised, digital, decentralised electric energy.

Digitisation enables buildings, machines and plants to reach new levels of reliability, safety, efficiency and productivity. It maximises comfort and energy efficiency in building and it enables a gradual change in asset performance management (notably with predictive analytics), operator’s empowerment (augmented reality), making enterprises and facilities more agile to adapt to varying operating conditions (information systems, analytics, lifecycle management).

How do you plan to partner with Make in India to add more value to infrastructure?
Make in India seeks to promote growth in the domestic market, establish India as a strong R&D hub and enhance production capabilities to service the Indian market and new economies, using India as a hub. With this combination, Schneider Electric is establishing a company with scale, efficiency and channel partner outreach across India. It will offer innovative products and solutions to Indian customers, bringing differentiation in a dynamic and competitive market having many major global and local low voltage switchgear players.

Schneider Electric is committed to making technology in the lines of Digital India and Make in India. Nearly 15 per cent of India’s solar capacity is based on Schneider technology. Digitisation and IoT are going to transform India’s energy ecosystem so that all citizens have access to uninterrupted electricity at affordable rates.

Schneider Electric partnered with Nabakalebara in 2015 where we put together a substantial and unique system of ‘CCTV Based City Surveillance, Online GIS Map tracking of PCR Vans and DIAL-100 integration in Puri, Orissa, for this festival. Our association with Nabakalabara is a classic example of technology convergence and the way it enables crowd management in the most advanced ways possible. The team managed to complete the project within a stringent timeline of 75 days, with extensive support from OPHWC and partners who ensured timely delivery of solutions.

The company partnered with government in 2017 to put together the right platform with perfect environment conditions for Handicrafts- Deen, Dayal Hastkala Sankul. Schneider Electric created a state–of-the-art building that will foster organised trade and ensure safety against fire and theft through 24X7 monitoring. Schneider deployed EcoStruxure Building Operations, 270 IP cameras with night-vision facility, integration of fire alarms and detection, access control and museum and auditorium lighting control.

What are the considerations for designing and constructing energy-efficient buildings?
Buildings, as an end market, represent around 40-45 per cent of Schneider Electric India’s business. The division also houses some of the core technologies where we are the undisputed global leaders. This includes areas of advanced analytics, connected products, Internet of Things (IoT) inside the buildings as well as the data centre and server infrastructure which we offer to the buildings.

To help companies on the fastest path to savings, Schneider Electric partners with the company to design and implement an enterprise strategy that accelerates and scales efficiency results across the entire global portfolio of sites. This helps in empowering the various sites in the process with the best practices, funding strategies and technology to sustain and optimise performance over time to achieve ambitious and long-range corporate energy and sustainability goals.

Smart buildings demand simple integration across systems, easy access to IoT devices, and an environment that keeps buildings and occupants safe.
Shrinivas Chebbi, President-Buildings Business, Schneider Electric

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