5 minute read

From traditional audits to virtual energy assessments for smarter energy management

14 Jan 2024

This post will explore the shift from traditional audits to virtual assessments, outline the challenges organizations face in adopting AI for energy management, and show how Deep Energy AI is addressing these challenges to empower smarter energy management.

Energy management is changing, and while traditional energy audits are still useful, they're being replaced by faster, more efficient technologies. Virtual Energy Assessments (VEA) powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) are shaking up the way we look at energy consumption in buildings. One platform leading this shift is Deep Energy AI, which offers smart, AI-driven solutions to help organizations monitor, assess, and optimize their energy usage remotely.

The Shift from Traditional Audits to Virtual Energy Assessments

Traditional energy audits require on-site inspections, manual data collection, and detailed reports on a building's energy use. While they work, these audits take time, cost a lot, and only give you a snapshot of your building's energy performance at one moment in time.

On the other hand, Virtual Energy Assessments (VEA), powered by AI, provide real-time monitoring and continuous insights. Deep Energy AI lets organizations gather and analyze data from sources like smart meters, weather forecasts, and occupancy trends\u2014without needing anyone to physically visit the site. Using this data, Deep Energy AI helps you optimize energy use, predict future needs, and make smarter decisions to improve energy efficiency.

Challenges in Implementing Virtual Energy Assessments

Even though Virtual Energy Assessments offer plenty of benefits, there are still a few hurdles to getting started. Here are some of the common challenges:

1. Data Integration and Quality

For AI to deliver accurate energy assessments, it needs high-quality data from various sources, like real-time energy meters, occupancy data, and weather conditions. However, many older buildings don't have the modern systems needed to collect this data, which can lead to incomplete or inconsistent information and reduce the effectiveness of AI-powered solutions.

2. Technology Infrastructure and Investment

Setting up a Virtual Energy Assessment system usually means investing in new tech, like smart meters, IoT devices, and cloud platforms. For smaller organizations, the upfront cost can be a significant barrier, making it tougher to take advantage of AI-powered energy assessments.

3. AI Complexity and Expertise

AI systems, especially those using advanced algorithms like Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), can be complex to set up, manage, and interpret. Many organizations don't have the technical expertise needed to fully leverage AI for energy management, which can slow down adoption.

4. Trust in AI-Generated Recommendations

AI models are sometimes seen as 'black-box' systems, meaning it's hard to understand how they make their decisions. This lack of transparency can cause energy managers to be skeptical of AI's recommendations, making it harder to adopt AI-driven energy strategies.

How Deep Energy AI Solves These Challenges

Deep Energy AI is designed to overcome the challenges of adopting Virtual Energy Assessments. Here's how it tackles each issue:

1. Seamless Data Integration and High-Quality Insights

Deep Energy AI integrates data from the meter data agent, weather data, and wholesale spot price data. By ingesting data from the source, the software ensures data completeness and accuracy for decision-making.

2. Cost-Effective Cloud-Based Solutions

One big hurdle to adopting AI is the cost of setting up the right infrastructure. Deep Energy AI solves this with its cloud-based platform, which eliminates the need for expensive hardware. Businesses can access powerful AI tools directly from the cloud, cutting down on upfront and ongoing costs. This makes it easier for organizations of all sizes to benefit from Virtual Energy Assessments without huge investments.

3. User-Friendly AI Tools

Even though advanced AI models can be complicated, Deep Energy AI simplifies things by offering easy-to-use tools that don't require technical expertise. The platform's intuitive interface allows energy managers to set up and monitor AI-driven assessments easily, while the AI takes care of the complex stuff in the background. This makes it accessible to organizations with limited tech resources.

4. Explainable AI for Transparency

To build trust, Deep Energy AI includes Explainable AI (XAI), which provides insights into how the AI makes its decisions. This transparency helps energy managers see exactly how the AI reached its conclusions, making them more confident in the recommendations and more likely to follow through on AI-driven energy strategies.

Conclusion

Moving from traditional energy audits to AI-powered Virtual Energy Assessments is a big step forward in energy management. Platforms like Deep Energy AI are leading the charge by offering smart tools that make data collection easier, cut costs, and provide clear, actionable insights for optimizing energy use.

By addressing challenges like data integration, cost, and complexity, Deep Energy AI is making Virtual Energy Assessments accessible to organizations of all sizes. As AI keeps advancing, platforms like Deep Energy AI will play a key role in helping businesses lower energy consumption, save money, and contribute to a more sustainable future.

Tags:
Artificial Neural Networks
Virtual Energy Assessments
AI+ML
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Ariel Tobey

Analyst

Ariel is an IoT consultant delivering building-to-grid solutions and smart building strategies for BE for over 5 years. His skill set covers marketing, business intelligence, data analytics, and communications.

I am a learned professional with over 15-years experience in communications, information systems management and technological project development across various businesses and industries. I regularly employ critical thinking to develop systems, specs and procedures to achieve project and organisational goals. Whilst my work leads to technological systems and solutions, I have learnt to focus primarily on people and outcomes rather than technology which is not an end in of itself. From a single application to broad-based innovation, I strive to deliver project outcomes that surpass organisational and market expectations and enact positive organisational, social and environmental change.

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