A multifunctional energy management system - LH München

The IT department of the City of Munich (it@M) recognized that the lack of transparency and accessibility in energy consumption data of their buildings, hindering effective evaluation of energy usage behaviour in their office spaces.

The students from Hochschule München have developed ZERO, a multifunctional energy management system for the IT department. This solution aims to track, visualize, and evaluate electricity consumption data of office spaces and devices so the department can make more informed decision-making for enhanced energy efficiency and sustainability. The team collaborated in a cross-functional setting for three months, comprising IT and Business students, to create the solution prototype.

The main features of the prototype are the centralized overview of buildings and devices, which are offering transparent insights into energy consumption for management-level stakeholders. ZERO offers a comprehensive comparison of the office space's energy consumption not only in isolation but also in relation to other examples from everyday life, such as energy consumption of private households or cruising range of an electric vehicle that can be reached with the same amount of energy. Furthermore, ZERO provides energy-saving tips that appear each time the homepage of the dashboard is reloaded, ensuring that users, especially employees of it@M are consistently exposed to practical ways to reduce energy consumption at work. This system does not only offer the comparison of energy consumption of office spaces but also for devices that are used in the office. In the data input page of ZERO, users can conveniently input data for office buildings and devices, and they have the flexibility to create their own categories for each device and office spaces.

As it@M has smart sockets, known as smart EVE plugs, installed in their office’s spaces, they can seamlessly upload the measured energy consumption to ZERO as a CSV file via the data input page. Once uploaded, ZERO processes the data and presents it in a user-friendly dashboard page, providing a centralized view and filter options on energy consumption for the buildings and devices.

The Project was carried out as part of the Co-Innovation Lab at Munich University of Applied Sciences.