Markiewicz, William;
Wang, Meng;
Wilson, Duncan;
Elwell, Cliff;
Rovas, Dimitrios;
Korolija, Ivan;
Wright, Darren;
(2025)
The potential of live data streams in a building’s digital twin to impact its energy consumption.
In:
Proceedings of Building Simulation 2025: 18th Conference of IBPSA.
IBPSA
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Abstract
Demand for more intelligent buildings is growing, and the use of digital twins has been increasing. There remains a question over whether the costs of digital twins are worth the benefits, with IBM finding that 90% of harvested internet of things data is never used. This paper seeks to address the costs and benefits of live data streams in digital twins and understand their impact on users and businesses in the built environment.Existing literature provides a range of digital twin implementations and suggested examples, however there is a lack of quantitative assessment of the benefits of digital twins and live data streams. The present study harvests live data streams from University College London’s One Pool Street building, including electricity consumption, heat energy consumption, occupancy, room CO2 concentrations, room temperatures, chiller operating temperatures, variable air volume flowrates, and air handling unit status. After an initial setup, the data harvesting and visualisation was developed over a 12-month period. After each month of development and monitoring, the latest data was reviewed with building stakeholders including facilities managers and the campus sustainability team. In these reviews, participants were asked to provide their views on whether the data was in line with their expectations, and if necessary, to agree on improvement actions. The potential benefits of these actions were calculated using results from an EnergyPlus model and live energy consumption data. Key findings suggested that by adapting building operations, both functionally and altering policy settings, the building could be operated more sustainably. Energy modelling results indicate that these improvements have the potential to provide electricity savings of 281MWh per year. An initial review of the energy footprint of the database used shows that 6.33 MWh per year are used for data transfer and storage.This study provides an assessment of the costs and benefits of live data streams in digital twins, which provides a part of the answer as to whether the benefits of digital twins are worth their cost. Future work will be carried out into the cost of creating digital twins and the benefits provided beyond energy savings, including benefits to building occupants’ productivity and comfort.
| Type: | Proceedings paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | The potential of live data streams in a building’s digital twin to impact its energy consumption |
| Event: | 2025 Building Simulation Conference |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.26868/25222708.2025.1959 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.26868/25222708.2025.1959 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | Live data streams, digital twins, energy performance, MQTT, action research |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School Env, Energy and Resources |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10218913 |
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