KTU FCEA is participating in PRECEPT project

In November 2020 PRECEPT Project was successfully launched under the HORIZON 2020 program. The project aims to develop a platform that supports the transition from energy-intensive homes into proactive and smart ones with reduced energy consumption and maintenance costs while enhancing the comfort of occupants through smart operation.

The project is coordinated by the company WATT + VOLT (Greece). The project consortium includes 15 partners from 10 European countries. Team of KTU, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture has an important role in this project and is responsible for Work Package 2 6D BIM (Building Information Modelling) and Digital Twin development as well as part of Pred(scr)ictive and Proactive Building Management System – Proactive Building Operation – Human Comfort & HVAC Operation Human modeling.

While BIM is becoming an industry standard in construction, PRECEPT aims to expand the general understanding of BIM into the 6^th dimension – the sustainability dimension. Energy-saving proposals, preventive maintenance actions, and actions to improve the overall efficiency of the building operation in real-time are represented by Digital Twin technologies.

During the PRECEPT project, renewable energy sources will be utilized in combination with IoT technologies. At the same time, the digital representation of the 6^th dimension of BIM, energy consumption, and cost forecasting models are being developed. Finally, Digital Twin enriched by artificial intelligence technologies, and Pred(scr)ictive and Proactive Building Management System adds unprecedented management capabilities to each home. Innovative Smart Proactiveness indicators and the methodology to evaluate the potential of proactiveness of residential buildings will be proposed during the implementation of the PRECEPT project.

During the first two plenary meetings of the PRECEPT project partners presented a detailed plan of activities, methodologies, and technologies of the project to be integrated, which are summarized as follows:

• Conversion of traditional buildings into interactive ones using a “fog enabled” toolbox, which will interact with the power supply network;
• Enhancing the energy efficiency of the building and increasing the well-being of the residents;
• Introduction of innovative IoT technologies and artificial intelligence that allow self-management, monitoring, problem-solving, and maintenance of the building;
• The advanced platform for visualizing the Big Data of each building, for the best maintenance decision.
• Improved experience, cooperation, and training of all stakeholders (residents, building maintainers, utility companies, construction companies) using communities and a knowledge exchange platform.
• Real-time representation of the Digital Twin of pilot buildings.
• Development of standard Smart Proactiveness Indicators.
• Development of procedures and algorithms for preventive maintenance of buildings.
• Introduction and evaluation of new business models for the preventive maintenance of buildings.

For the evaluation, development, and presentation of the PRECEPT ecosystem, 5 pilot sites of different climatic and construction standards in Europe are selected in a range from residential buildings to high-rise apartment buildings. After that PRECEPT business models will be presented for wider application.

Dr. Rasa Apanavičienė, a member of KTU team, noticed that many researchers around the world explore Digital Twin as a semantic tool to monitor the dynamic status of a building and control its performance automatically in real-time. PRECEPT project aims to develop the Pred(scr)ictive and Proactive Building Management System which enables the Digital Twin and different systems such as IoT sensor networks, energy modelling tools, artificial intelligence algorithms, and social collaboration platform “talk” to each other and ensure efficient building operation, energy consumption, human comfort, and wellbeing not only in real-time but also looking ahead. PP-BMS will provide the owners, residents, and facility managers of the residential buildings with the advice to proceed with the recommended pro-active actions in order to save energy and/or reduce the operational and maintenance costs in the near future.

Dr. Andrius Jurelionis of KTU invites researchers interested in this topic to follow the progress of the project – “As an EU funded Horizon 2020 project, PRECEPT will make a lot of reports and outputs available for the research community. Overview of legislation enabling proactive building operation, 6D BIM report, PRECEPT solution description, and many more deliverables will be made publicly available at different stages of the project’s standards. I would like to invite the research community to follow our work, share their experience, and get in touch with us. Within this project, the approach will be tested on pilot buildings, which I believe will be very interesting for the research community”.

More about the project:

https://www.precept-project.eu/

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/958284

Duration 01/10/2020 to 30/09/2023