Campus story

Building Campus Sustainability through energy analytics

Educational campuses are generally seen as the altar for teaching, learning and dissemination of knowledge. However, in recent times campuses have also started to move in the direction of addressing sustainability issues in terms of curriculum, research and operational aspects. With the advent of several voluntary global sustainability standards, campuses are now driven by the need to be adopt sustainable and green practices in their operations.

In September 2015 the Symbiosis Institute of International Business (SIIB), a constituent of Symbiosis International (Deemed University) organised its first Energy and Environment Conclave (ENECON 2015) where senior industry professionals and policy makers were invited to deliberate on some of the important challenges and opportunities being faced in the sector. During this Conclave it was decided to involve SIIB and its Energy and Environment programme in the development of the Smart Campus Cloud Network (SCCN). Rajendra Shende, Former Director UNEP and Chairman TERRE Policy Centre and Harit Soni, Director Ecolibrium Energy were instrumental in creating the platform for the introduction of this unique initiative at SIIB. As a result, SIIB became the first Educational campus in India to become a member of the SCCN.

A core group of consisting of selected students and faculties has been formed to co-ordinate and analyse energy consumption data. Five subgroup consisting of remaining students, comprising of at least one electrical engineer and one mechanical engineer/chemical/ power or production engineer have also been involved for a better understanding of the process. Once every month/fortnight, the core group conducts a meeting to discuss and share the monitoring process/ indicators/ feedbacks/ suggestions. The group refers to the reports generated by SmartSense data and devise methods to make use of electricity more efficiently.

SCCN is a pilot study with data being generated on energy consumption across the institutes' academic facilities. The MBA Energy and Environment students saw this as a novel idea to track energy consumption across the day, month as well as during important Institutional events and conclaves. The students of this Batch used this opportunity to provide a daily report on the energy consumption for the benefit of all students. This not only created awareness amongst students but on many occasions spurred students to inform the administration on rationalising usage of power across the campus and hostel areas.

At the campus as we begin to understand the intricacies of energy analytics using the Smartsense meter, we believe that data analytics will play a critical role on not only providing students with a real time experience, but also become a major focus in times to come in shaping the minds of young talent in operationalising sustainable practices at work place. In the future the Institute is also planning to integrate rooftop Solar PhotoVoltaic (PV) system with the Smart Sense meter. This will further help us in analysing our usage of renewable energy vs conventional grid based power.