We are dedicated to a greener future – by utilising IoT
The Internet of Things (IoT) usage is growing rapidly. Data-driven decision making is one of the foundations underneath this growing adaption. Digitization is driven even faster by COVID-19 and everything that is related to it and companies have had to adapt to these new changing environments with rapid speed. Employees are returning to the offices, children are going back to school, and we need to make sure that they can do so safely and to protect their health – with help from the IoT. Presence sensors, CO2 sensors, people passing counters, temperature sensors and so on collect all needed data to create safe, healthy and comfortable spaces.
A unified approach
The easier the installation of such sensor systems and connectivity to the cloud, the better. For that, a unified path to the internet is key. EnOcean is not religious about certain IoT radio standards, be it Bluetooth, Zigbee or the EnOcean protocol and radio. We believe it is more important to create systems that are easy-to-deploy, making the hurdles for decision makers as low as possible.
The same applies to our different ways of harvesting energy. Kinetic, solar and temperature differences are not equally suited for the same applications. We make use of kinetic energy for our battery-free switches because the press of a button happens anyway. Our wireless sensors are best powered by solar energy and when there’s a significant temperature difference between, for example machines and the air around them, that’s where thermal energy is generated.
A safe return to offices
But what we are religious about at EnOcean is helping companies, and offices in particular, to create healthier environments for employees and more sustainable ways of operating their businesses. The fact that buildings cause around 40 % of the worldwide CO2 emissions shows that there’s huge potential to make these not only more neutral in themselves, but also to create healthier environments for everyone at the same time. How many times are lights switched on even though nobody is in a room or daylight would actually be sufficient, or the heating and HVAC are turned on when windows are open? With the help of sensors we can monitor all that and prevent unnecessary energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The sensors can tell us the amount of people in a meeting room, which desks are occupied, temperature and humidity, the amount of fresh air in a room or the status of doors and windows (open/closed). EnOcean and its eco-system of partners provide easy solutions to a decades-old problem.
One step further for businesses
Post COVID it is expected that employees will return to the offices for three days per week, the other two days working remotely. In theory this would mean that the use of real estate a company rents would drop from five to three days (- 40 %). This could be a substantial opportunity to reduce operational expenses as well as to improve the CO2 footprint of buildings because the reduction in real estate costs goes hand in hand with fewer carbon emissions. The overall 25 – 50 % reduction in real estate and utility costs and the 25 – 40 % reduction in carbon footprint have not gone unnoticed by CFOs and CEOs.
The fastest way to positively impact our CO2 goals as a company is to reduce the amount of resources we need to run our businesses. Yes, we will need wind mills, solar energy, green hydrogen and batteries, to reduce carbon emissions on a long-term basis, but the positive contribution they will have to make to the extent required will take years or even decades. Today, there are already solutions on the market that reduce our carbon footprint through savings and this impact will help us from today all the way to 2050.
EnOcean’s technology is right at the crossroad of enabling these savings, both economically and carbon-wise, in an easy end-to-end fashion.
