IES Awarded Scottish Government Funding to Tackle Climate Emergency with AI

Last updated: 1st November 2022

In our first big news of the new year (and decade!) we are delighted to announce that IES are one of a few select organisations awarded funding through the Scottish Government's Can Do Innovation Challenge Fund, managed by Scottish Enterprise. This follows our successful proposal submitted under the "AI for Good Challenge" which set out to find innovative organisations to help solve the climate emergency by harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence.

IES will now embark on the development of U-LEARN, a unique, web-based command centre that will help facility and energy managers monitor, analyse and predict the performance of any building portfolio. Through a combination of live measured building data, artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and simulation of a building’s thermal and physics properties, the U-LEARN command centre will learn from end users’ actions and feedback to generate smart alarms and customised reports in almost real-time. Enhancing and complimenting the capabilities of our existing ICL digital twin technology, U-LEARN will enable intelligent data insights for more efficient building management, saving significant energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and operational costs. 

The project aims to help Scotland fulfil its ambition of achieving net-zero by 2045, but will also provide a solution which can be used by any other country to help fulfil their zero-carbon targets. It will also empower customers to participate in the energy transition and support the Scottish economy to remain ahead of the competition in the area of AI for building energy efficiency.

Valeria Ferrando, EU Head of Research at IES, commented: “The level of energy waste in the built environment is huge, with energy use in buildings currently representing roughly one-third of global final energy consumption. It is therefore imperative that we seek solutions to reduce building-related energy use and emissions if we are to have any chance of achieving the goal stated by the Paris Agreement to remain well below 2°C.

“We are excited to have been given this opportunity to further develop the AI capabilities of our software and to deliver this solution which will help Scotland, and indeed any other country, take effective action to respond to the climate emergency.”

Read the full press release from Scottish Enterprise here.



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