Ofenval represents and provides heating and air conditioning solutions tailored to your buildings’ specific needs. With over 1,000 installations they are part of Indelcasa, a leading company in the air conditioning and refrigeration sector in Spain.
Context
BuildON is an EU-funded project with the mission of renovating five pilot sites in Europe and improving their energy efficiency to promote digitalization, automation and control of buildings via the integration of effective and affordable technological solutions.
The first pilot site is a residential building in Valladolid, with 14 floors and four dwellings per floor and a Building Management System by the Facility Management company Veolia. The building required its energy management strategy to improve as unoccupied rooms were being heated excessively causing an increase in energy consumption as well as other inefficiencies.
Challenges
The BuildON pilot project aimed to implement new energy efficiency measures in a building where renovations or further upgrades were challenging due to technical limitations.
The primary challenge with the building is that despite being renovated in 2018 and having a Building Management System the solution chosen at the time did not support wireless communications such as the LoRaWAN protocol.
The apartments in the building, offered in two sizes (72sqm and 92sqm), each with a kitchen, living room, two or three bedrooms, and one bathroom, required centralized monitoring and room-by-room control of the indoor temperatures. The building needed a solution that focused on energy management without time-intensive and costly building renovations.
The building managers needed an IoT solution to control reduced energy costs and keep the indoor climate comfortable, ensuring the comfort of occupants.
“With the revolutionary Wattsense Bridge, we transformed a residential building into a model of efficiency and comfort by seamlessly integrating Veolia's energy management with MClimate's smart technology to achieve up to 35% savings, demonstrating that the future is IoT, connected, and sustainable”Daniel Rodriguez, IoT & Smart Metering Product Manager at Ofenval
Solution
As the project's consultant and technology distributor, Ofenval provided the Wattsense Bridge as the connectivity solution to integrate the MClimate Vicki radiator thermostatic valves with the Veolia Building Management System. By enabling protocol conversion and communication via BACnet, Modbus, or MQTT, the Wattsense Bridge effectively eliminated the incompatibility between devices.
The Wattsense Bridge closes the gap between buildings and IoT technology, converting LoRaWAN data to BACnet / Modbus so operators or energy managers can locally access the data of any LoRaWAN sensor and deploy Smart Building solutions quickly.
Results
The integration of Wattsense as a connectivity solution has proven to be highly effective in achieving significant energy savings and operational efficiency. By seamlessly incorporating MClimate Vicki valves into Veolia's BMS, Wattsense eliminated the need for complex and costly equipment replacements, ensuring a smooth retrofit process without onsite disturbances.
The MClimate Vicki Valves: Achieved up to 35% energy savings through temperature and humidity monitoring, open window detection, and precise radiator temperature control. With LoRaWAN communication and replaceable batteries lasting over 10 years, they ensure efficient, long-term operation.
This collaboration demonstrates the importance of interoperability in the digitalization of existing buildings. Introducing IoT technology can leverage the power of a BMS like Veolia's, transforming buildings into highly energy-efficient environments.
