Addressing the energy performance gap
Oslo, Norway — 17 June 2024. Skanska Norge AS, Piscada AS and Simien AS enter into a strategic partnership and have established the new company SmartTune AS. SmartTune will offer forward-looking solutions for monitoring and optimising energy use in buildings. The purpose of SmartTune is to close the gap between the projected energy performance and the actual performance of a building, also known as 'the energy performance gap'. Using real-time cloud-based simulations and advanced machine learning, SmartTune helps building owners understand where and why this gap occurs. This information is important for introducing measures to optimise energy performance, improve indoor climate, and reduce operating costs throughout the building's entire lifetime.
A strategic partnership with unique capabilities
“We look forward to being able to extract commercial value by taking SmartTune from a research project to an established company together with our partners Piscada and Simien. It is the sum of the three parties' unique capabilities that makes it possible to realise the commercial potential. Investing in innovative software companies with clear goals of creating a more efficient and sustainable construction industry is complementary to our core business. The partnership gives us a unique opportunity to use our industry knowledge in developing advanced digital solutions that contribute to more energy-efficient buildings in the future.”
Christoffer Hernæs, CDO at Skanska and chairman of the newly established company
“For Piscada, this is a fantastic opportunity to expand our offering within energy management. By combining our cloud-based solutions with Skanska's industry experience and Simien's advanced analyses, we can offer something entirely new to the market. Translated into energy terms, building owners have achieved lower energy consumption in their buildings than was previously possible. This is the result of greater insight into how the building functions and thus better conditions for being able to 'tune' the building.”
Torgeir Pedersen, CEO at Piscada AS
Machine learning at the core
Simien also sees significant benefits from the partnership. The company will initially be responsible for the day-to-day operations of SmartTune and will hold the role of technical project manager.
“Our machine learning expertise will play a central role in the development of SmartTune's technology. We have already installed a feedback module in the landmark building Vertikal Nydalen. This provides owners with responses on users' indoor climate experiences. Combined with simulation data from our calculation programme Simien PRO and real climate and operational data from Piscada, we get a combined data foundation that is analysed in real time. This gives us a unique basis for learning more about the building and optimising energy use.”
Nicolai Dirdal, CEO at Simien
“SmartTune is in practice a digital twin for building energy use and indoor climate. By combining data from the design phase (SIMIEN model), the operations phase, and user feedback, we get, with an entirely new type of operational tool, high-quality data that gives us many exciting possibilities that other tools do not have. We have already gained a great deal of learning from the solution in pilot projects such as Powerhouse Telemark and Nydalen Vertikal. Now we look forward to sharing the solution with more and developing it further in our own company.”
Niels Lassen, Dr.Ing., Chief Advisor at Skanska Teknikk
About the companies
- Skanska AS is a leading player in the construction and civil engineering industry in Norway, known for its strong focus on sustainability and innovation and green business development.
- Piscada AS develops innovative cloud-based software solutions for operations, monitoring, and analysis of technical installations in buildings.
- Simien AS is Norway's leading technology company for energy calculation of residential and commercial buildings.
- SmartTune AS – The business concept is built on the SmartTune research project and the doctoral thesis of Niels Lassen, Dr.Ing. and Chief Advisor at Skanska Teknikk.
Contact
- Nicolai Dirdal, CEO at Simien AS — nicolai.dirdal@simien.no — +47 928 58 016
- Learn more about SmartTune at https://simien.no/produkt/smarttune/