Shaping the Blueprint for Urban Utopias with an AI-first Approach (original) (raw)
Ashiss Dash
Published Jul 12, 2024
Utopia is that imaginary place in the new world where everything is in order, in harmony. But while this place does not exist, it increasingly must.
We need to shape our urban utopias faster than ever: built spaces add up to over 40% of global CO2 emissions. And it will only add up more: global floor building area is expected to double by 2060. So, urban spaces must rapidly decarbonize to reduce their footprint by embracing energy transition now. Cities, campuses, buildings: every kilowatt must be measured and balanced out.
So how does one go about building the ideal urban environment? The biggest challenge is greening what has already been built. It may not have been built sustainable from the ground up, but there’s room to make it greener. And if it’s already built to be sustainable, there’s work to be done to make it even more so.
Like the Infosys Pune campus in India, a sprawling green acreage of 18 multi-storied buildings that hosts 40,000 Infoscions. All the 18 buildings here are LEED platinum certified with an average EPI of less than 70. The campus was already geared for high energy efficiency, which is why we chose it as the testbed to build our energy utopia when we embarked on a transformative project: Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS).
We shared this ambition and vision of sustainable spaces and future with bp. Both Infosys and bp decided to co-develop EaaS, an energy management platform to optimize the supply and demand for power, heating, and cooling. At its core, EaaS is an AI-driven platform that can collect data from multiple energy sources to provide intelligence and actions that can optimize the demand and supply for every energy point: power, heating, cooling. The scope of EaaS goes well beyond the carbon footprint of buildings, it also brings to bear digital solutions for seamless EV infrastructure on campus, and even physical infrastructure with a solar power supply of 10.5 MW.
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Since 2021, when we announced the EaaS partnership with bp, we’ve made remarkable progress, increasing the renewable energy mix on the Pune campus by a staggering 65%. But it wasn’t as easy as ingesting data and tracking dashboards. IT-OT integration was quite complex. From a long list of use cases for AI/ML like HVAC, we had to prioritize the right ones. And forecasting demand daily required nuanced modelling in the era of hybrid work.
The learnings we’ve had are not just for us alone. We wanted to share this with everyone to accelerate their own journeys and navigate thru their own challenges.
I am thrilled to announce that our work on energy transition with EaaS is now featured on WEF and hopefully it will serve as inspiration for others looking to digitize to decarbonize. Being a part of the ‘Transforming Energy Demand’ initiative under the WEF International Business Council, I’ve had the first-hand experience to witness many tireless sustainability endeavors around the globe like ours at Infosys.
All of us, in our own way, are looking to build that utopia. The more we shape it together, the closer we get.
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