Presenting Team Members:
Trisha Gupta – Master’s Student in Architecture
Vedyun Mishra – Master’s Student in Architecture
School: Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Challenge: Building Energy Audits for Residential or Commercial Buildings
Problem Definition: The objective of this challenge is to develop technical solutions to expedite energy audits or develop a simplified, yet effective, energy audit methodology, by finding ways to reduce time and cost compared to current audit practices. In addition to proposing solutions, this challenge also asks teams to demonstrate the proposed energy audit solution on an existing building.
Project Title: Enabling the Proliferation of Energy Auditing
Solution: One of the major hurdles faced by the energy auditing industry is the lack of understanding on the part of energy auditors where they have been guilty for missing the customer’s highest priorities, or planning too detailed of an audit and pricing themselves out of the market. The second most common issue reported was the lack of expertise to perform necessary evaluation, while auditors may specialize in certain areas (lighting, controls, building envelope, etc.), most projects cannot bear the cost of numerous specialists in today’s world. This process of gaining experience and mentorship can take several years before the professional is ready to provide meaningful results. With more uncertainties predicted around energy usage stemming from potentially new pandemics, the process of Energy Auditing now requires to be more efficient and resilient for the future. This study proposes the use of Drones, IR technology and machine learning to automate the process and decreasing the cost and time when compared to the current project. Once the process is automated, the time of energy auditors would be minimized as their core focus would shift from data collection to analysis of the data. Through the process of using Drones, IR, the customer would be able to save on the upfront cost per hour. We are proposing an innovative solution to combine the power of using different but interconnected technologies to harness the true potential of energy auditing, for the future.