BEMServer, the open-source solution for modular, scalable and secure Building Energy Management System is currently evolving

BEMServer was born with the H2020 EU-funded HIT2GAP project completed at the end of 2019 with the deployment and demonstration of the solution on 4 pilot sites located in France, Spain, Ireland and Poland.

Today BEMServer is growing thanks to the support of different projects funded by the European Commission (H2020 projects) and the Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine. NOBATEK/INEF4, the main BEMServer contributor, is working on improving and adding extra functionalities to the solution on 4 main different projects:

• In INFINITE and ENSNARE (both H2020 projects), we aim at adapting BEMServer to the residential context to monitor and control envelop kits installed for an energy-efficient renovation.
• The Intellib@t project, funded by the ‘Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine’, gives the opportunity to make some changes at the Core of BEMServer and to develop AI-based algorithms for an enhanced sensor errors detection and correction.
• Finally, the Metabuilding Labs project (H2020) will give the opportunity to test BEMServer on façade products test beds, and to develop suitable modules for advanced analysis of test campaigns data.

BEMServer is therefore enlarging its applications portfolio and moving from the initial tertiary buildings application (BMS) to the broader use cases with still the same objective related with performances (energy, comfort and environmental) optimisation in buildings. Technically speaking a roadmap was established for a new version of BEMServer with the following main developments:

• The timeseries storage system is moved from HDF5 to TimeScaleDB for an improved management of concurrency;
• REST API to collect data are modified to collect multiple data in a CSV format, and an MQTT facility will be added to interact with IoT sensors;
• BEMOnt, the ontology at the core of BEMServer (https://github.com/HIT2GAP-EU-PROJECT/BEMOnt) will be revisited to be split in different modules that can be used depending on the monitoring project BEMServer is used on. Additionally, BEMOnt will be aligned with existing or de facto standards from the building and monitoring industry: BOT (building Ontology Topology, SAREF, Bricks…) for an enhanced interoperability of the server with existing solutions;
• The accessibility layer will be revisited to be adapted to the different use cases, enforcing data protection to specific roles;
• A sensors data error detection and correction module/service will be developed based on Artificial Intelligence and Statistical models to deliver better quality data to client modules;
• Specific expert-dedicated modules will be developed such as an issue tracker for facility manager, campaign dashboards for testbeds…

If you are interested to know more about this development, if you want to help us by evaluating the solution and by being part of the developing force, contact us!