Development of energy saving software based on artificial intelligence by the Catalan company DEXMA. This project has been supporting by ACCIÓ through International Business R&D Cluster, and the new system is currently at the pilot stage in almost 3,500 buildings.
- The tool, which is targeted at small and medium-sized businesses and large corporations, instantly obtains information on their energy consumption through electricity supplier companies and offers energy efficiency recommendations via remote channels.
- In implementing this project, DEXMA has received support from ACCIÓ through International Business R&D Cluster aid programme while also receiving advice on accessing one million Euros in aid from the European Commission Small and Medium Sized Business Programme.
- The new DEXMA system, which is currently at the pilot stage in almost 3,500 buildings, offers a precision of 95% and requires no physical installation as it uses the existing electrical meters.
ACCIÓ supports DEXMA in the development of energy saving software based on artificial intelligence
Barcelona, 18 November 2018.- The Catalan company DEXMA, a leading European energy management software firm, is currently developing software based on artificial intelligence to help companies save energy. This system instantly obtains information on the energy consumption of small and medium-sized businesses and large corporations through the smart meters in their buildings and offers them recommendations on how to increase energy efficiency without the need for any physical installation.
In implementing this project, DEXMA has received the support of ACCIÓ –the Catalan agency for business competitiveness which reports to the Department of Business and Knowledge – through the International Business R&D Cluster aid programme, which promotes R&D business projects between Catalan and other international companies – in this case, a UK-based partner. The company has also received advice from ACCIÓ on how to access aid amounting to two million Euros from other Small and Medium-Sized Business Programmes set up by the European Commission.
The new DEXMA software, called Energy Grader (Since Oct 2019 called DEXMA Detect), uses smart algorithms to analyse consumption in different buildings, considering metadata such as the surface area, geographical location or the HVAC technology used, among others. “In a nutshell, we take an automatic X-ray of the consumption of each company, in each building”, explains Joan Pinyol, Managing Director and co-founder of DEXMA. The tool currently offers a precision of 95% in the calculation of building energy sub-consumption.
“One of the advantages of this new software is that it reduces the cost of conventional energy audits up to 10 times by instantly reporting the savings potential of your buildings”, says Pinyol. Using big data, the system classifies different companies based on the energy consumption in their buildings and their similarities, in addition to estimating their savings potential and detecting possible improvements while also generating a business energy consumption database.
DEXMA’s tool is targeted at all types of companies, from small and medium-sizes ones to large multinationals, but for now it has ruled out the possibility of using it in the residential sector. “Our main clients are electricity supply companies as they provide energy services and can offer user recommendations”, commented Pinyol. Apart from the companies that have contracted energy supplier services, DEXMA is also targeting its tool at large business groups with many buildings and workers (such as hotel or supermarket chains and banks) which can benefit from centralised, remote energy management for all their buildings. In fact, the Catalan company is now conducting pilot tests with an electricity supply company and another from the retail sector which has many offices, making a total of almost 3,500 managed buildings.
DEXMA, based in Barcelona, has a staff of 40 workers, most of them dedicated to software development and the use of next-generation technologies that involve big data and artificial intelligence. The Catalan company plans to finally start selling the new EnergyGrader tool in 2019, but is currently working on a prototype that will include new functionalities as it is being developed. The company also intends to export its solution in forthcoming years and is now analysing its main markets, which are the UK, France, Italy and the Benelux Region.
