Power2SME
Financial contract Nr. 48E from 23/11/2015
Project ID: E!9864
The total value of the budget: 1.045.040,00 Lei
The total value of the contract: 1.621.978,00 Lei
The total value of the co-founding: 576.938,00 Lei
The start date of the contract: 23/11/2015
The end date of the contract: 20/05/2018
Funding and support programme: Eureka-Eurostars
Partner: International partners
- C.c.com Moser Gmbh / main partner – R&D Performing SME
- Experis Manpowergroup S.l.u. – Large company
Project Director (partner): George Suciu (george [at] beia [dot] ro, Peroni 16, Bucharest, Romania, Tel: +40374104901, Fax: +40213323006)
Project financed by UEFISCDI through the European and International Cooperation Program
More information on eurostars-eureka.eu and European project website
Project Success Story
Power2SME aims to create a cloud system that will change SMEs’ way of consuming energy, by making them aware of their use. The consortium will deliver a platform that will manage the energy consumption of SMEs and regular users, helping them to administrate their energy use. This platform will be secure and integrated with the existing electric network, as well as environmental data, like temperature and luminosity.
The consortium’s will is to enhance Europe’s energy consumption, by managing the use of SMEs’ energy, lowering its costs, saving money that could be used as an investment, and changing their behavior towards a use of cleaner sources of energy. The consortium also aims to create a more responsible way to spend energy, taking the environment into consideration, making it possible to SMEs to become eco-friendly and to be certificated for that, for the platform will use ISO’s recommendation.
The resulted prototype will be industrialized and offered for SMEs that want to cut their costs, to become eco-friendly and to get certifications about their energy management. It would be also offered to other domains interested in context sensors, such as constructors, that could use in their projects.
To achieve the proposed objectives, the project activity is structured as it follows:
Phase I – Definition of the actual state of the art [23/11/2015 – 31/12/2015]
- Activity 1.1 Actual technology state for energy platforms (correlated with T1.1 from the European project)
Phase description:
Within this activity we addressed: (i) knowledge regarding energy efficiency, (ii) communities, institutions and companies as a part of the energetic area, (iii) best practices in energy efficiency (iv) monitoring, quantification and reporting of energy consumption, (v) management of energy demand, (vi) instruments for comparing costs related to the lifecycle of equipment/buildings with a high energy consumption, (vii) energy performance indicators and energetic statistics, (viii) web platforms which provide mobile applications for data visualization, (ix) standards and protocols, (x) events which address energetic themes and (xi) smart sensors, actuators and meters used in energy management.
Phase 1 was completed on December 31st, 2015.
Phase II – Platform definition [01/01/2016 – 31/05/2016]
- Activity 2.1 Use cases and system requirements (correlated with T1.2 from the European project)
- Activity 2.2 Definition of validation scenarios (correlated with T1.3 from the European project)
- Activity 2.3 Market study (correlated with T1.4 from the European project)
Phase description:
Within Activity 2.1 we presented five possible use cases: (i) energy performance contracting – EPC, (ii) solar panels, (iii) geothermal energy, (iv) distributed sensor systems and (v) “Smart Home” solutions. We also addressed general requirements both from a functional and non-functional perspective and requirements specific for each use case.
Within Activity 2.2 we addressed general validation scenarios for functional and non-functional requirements and specific validation scenarios for each use case.
Within Activity 2.3 we analyzed the energetic sector/industry in Romania, products, and services Power2SME consortium could provide by exploiting the results of the project, potential customers’ needs, market size, competition, and socioeconomic environment.
Phase 2 was completed on May 31st, 2016.
Phase III – Context analysis [01/06/2016 – 30/11/2016]
- Activity 3.1 User context (correlated with T2.1 from the European project)
- Activity 3.2 Business context (correlated with T2.2 from the European project)
- Activity 3.3 External data (correlated with T2.3 from the European project)
Phase description:
Within Activity 3.1 we addressed user needs, data requested from SMEs for service customization and sensing technologies that can facilitate comfort, security and energy efficiency.
Within Activity 3.2 we addressed the topic of energy efficiency within SMEs, measures adopted by SMEs to enhance energy efficiency, benefits of enhancing energy efficiency within SMEs, financing sources for investments that address energy efficiency and barriers in the adoption of energy efficiency measures.
Within Activity 3.3 we addressed: (i) state-of-the-art for standard protocols and technologies used for external data management, (ii) specificity of external data and (iii) standard protocols and technologies used for the external data Gateway.
Phase 3 concluded on November 30th, 2016.
Phase IV – Power2SME platform infrastructure [01/12/2016 – 31/05/2017]
- Activity 4.1 Electric sensors (correlated with T3.1 from the European project)
- Activity 4.2 Context sensors (correlated with T3.2 from the European project)
- Activity 4.3 External data acquisition (correlated with T3.3 from the European project)
Phase description:
Within Activity 4.1 we addressed international standards in the field of electric energy consumption, market and technologies for electric sensors, and intelligent sensors for monitoring energy consumption.
Within Activity 4.2 we addressed international standards for health and comfort, market, and technologies for context sensors and intelligent sensors for monitoring environmental parameters.
Within Activity 4.3 we addressed external data sources, external data format, and solutions for the development of external data acquisition interfaces.
Phase 4 completed on May 31st, 2017.
Phase V – Interface and data integration [01/06/2017 – 30/11/2017]
- Activity 5.1 Software components, interfaces, and connections (correlated with T4.1 from the European project)
- Activity 5.2 Energy algorithms (correlated with T4.2 from the European project)
- Activity 5.3 Platform implementation (correlated with T4.3 from the European project)
Phase description:
Within Activity 5.1 we defined the conceptual architecture and the software modules of the Power2SME platform.
Within Activity 5.2 we defined data inputs and outputs, and the algorithms used for energy modelling and simulation.
Within Activity 5.3 we defined data integration methods and technologies used for platform implementation (network, back-end, GUI).
Phase 5 concluded on November 30th, 2017.
Phase VI – Power2SME platform validation [01/12/2017 – 20/05/2018]
- Activity 6.1 Validation Scenarios and system Testing (correlated with T5.1 from the European project)
- Activity 6.2 Evaluation, guidelines and recommendations (correlated with T5.2 from the European project)
- Activity 6.3 Dissemination of project results (correlated with T6.1 and T6.2 from the European project)
Phase description:
Within Activity 6.1 we presented the main functionalities of the Power2SME solution, we defined test cases and scenarios for functional and non-functional requirements and we tested the data acquisition components, including the interfaces and connectors.
Within Activity 6.2 we evaluated the market needs for energy efficiency and we presented how Power2SME addresses the identified needs. The main competitive advantages were presented, as well as good practices and recommendations.
Within Activity 6.3, the main dissemination events which Beia attended to were presented, such as the online presence, scientific conferences, fairs and forums.
The last phase of the project, Phase 6, concluded on May 20th, 2018.
Phase VI: Reporting on economic effects [Report on economic and financial activity] [21/05/2018 – 20/05/2019]
Phase VII: Reporting on economic effects [Report on economic and financial activity] [21/05/2019– 20/05/2020]
Phase VIII: Reporting on economic effects [Report on economic and financial activity] [21/05/2019 – 20/05/2021]
Results
The main result of the Power2SME project is a Cloud Energy Management Platform that aims to help SMEs manage energy efficiently. The Power2SME’s functionalities extend from simply monitoring the energy consumption to EPC performance assessment, provision of recommendations and comparisons, establishment of a marketplace for matchmaking between stakeholders in the field of energy and generation of energy certification reports.
Products and services
- Products: Energy and environmental sensors
- Services:
- Monitoring of energy production and consumption
- Monitoring environmental conditions
- EPC performance assessment
- Recommendations and comparisons
- Matchmaking
- Energy certification reporting
Competitive advantage
The Power2SME platform differentiates from the energy management software existing on the market by not only generating awareness regarding energy consumption, but also identifying energy production and consumption patterns, assessing the economic efficiency of investments, comparing consumption behaviour among different cost centers of the company or other entities, generating recommendations based on real time conditions, generating energy reports, and connecting with other entities for energy products and services. A key competitive point is that it takes economic efficiency into consideration and it facilitates actuation. Power2SME provides data regarding energy consumption and savings both in monetary and energy units, sharing of savings between ESCO and the customer, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) such as the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Net Present Value (NPV), Return of Investment (ROI) and various notifications regarding energy prices, budget tracking records, budget allocations and important deadlines.
Publications:
10) Suciu, G., Necula, L. A., Curtmola, Y. & Beceanu, C. (June, 2018). Managing the Production and Consumption of Energy for Different Cost Centers within SMEs Using an IoT and Cloud-Based Energy Management Platform. 17th International Conference on Informatics in Economy (IE 2018).