CPS: Breakthrough: Low-cost Continuous Virtual Energy Audits in Cyber-Physical Building Envelope

Electricity usage of buildings (including offices, malls and residential apartments) represents a significant portion of a nation's energy expenditure and carbon footprint. Buildings are estimated to consume 72% of the total electricity production in the US. Unfortunately, however, 30% of this energy consumption is wasted. Virtual energy assessment is an approach that can optimize building energy efficiency and minimize waste at a low cost with minimal expert intervention. A virtual energy audit includes a thorough and near real time analysis of different sources of building energy usage, individualized energy footprints of load appliances and devices, and proactive identification of energy holes and air leakages. This project is building a low cost solution that combines the use of non-intrusive single point energy monitoring and low cost IR cameras to provide continuous energy audits. The system will provide continuous virtual audit reports to the landlords or residential users. The system is being deployed in low income neighborhoods in Baltimore City, Maryland, where poor insulation problems are assumed to be fiscally insurmountable and low cost solutions to determining these issues is important for the landlords.

To develop a scalable low cost virtual energy auditing system, this breakthrough research will pursue the interfaces of smart building sensing, computing and actuation. The project is being executed under three main research thrust areas. First, it is utilizing an autonomous discovery, profiling and rule-based predictive model to capture the relationship between disaggregated power measures and a device’s actual usage patterns to pinpoint any abnormal consumption. Second, the PIs are developing zero-energy far-infrared imaging sensors for low cost low frequency heat map scanning and air leakage detection. Third, the project is engineering and evaluating cyber-physical building sensing system with a control level design perspective for virtual energy auditing that drives the realization of deep energy savings and building efficiency. This research advances will catalyze innovation in the Science of and Technology for Building Cyber-Physical Systems. Additionally the PIs with collaboration from Constellation are hosting building energy education projects and workshop where undergraduate, high school, and underrepresented group of students would understand how to design and program energy meters and smart plugs.