Nimbus Centre at Cork Institute of Technology is a key partner in a Motorola-led European project to reduce energy consumption in buildings worldwide.

The Tools for Continuous Building Performance Auditing (TOPAs) project targets up to 20% energy savings by creating new cloud-based analytic tools for auditing the energy performance of buildings. This will support the development of the energy market and job creation within this sector.
CIT is a key partner in TOPAs with Dr Susan Rea and Dr Alan McGibney fulfilling the roles of Scientific and Technical Managers with overall responsibility for the scientific direction and technical achievements of the project.

The CIT campus will be used as a demonstration and validation site for TOPAs, which will also contribute to CIT’s ambitious energy-saving targets to reduce campus energy consumption by 30% in the next 5 years. Nimbus is committed to trialling technology in real-world environments and has testbeds to support these aims.

A key aim for this project is to provide better visibility on how energy-related decisions impact management, cost, occupant comfort and environmental health. “TOPAs will demonstrate how international collaboration contributes to the improvement of environmental conditions on the planet, creating new business opportunities through the reduction of energy usage,” says Boris Kantsepolsky, project coordinator and business development manager at Motorola Solutions Israel. “By reducing costs and enhancing sustainability, TOPAs encourages businesses to invest in positive social change that will make people’s lives better.”

According to the World Energy Outlook reports, buildings are the largest energy consumers in the western world. TOPAs will minimise energy consumption in buildings by adopting a holistic approach, understanding how buildings work and supporting continuous energy audits on buildings.
By creating a thorough framework for continuous performance auditing, TOPAs will minimise the gap between predicted and actual energy performance, allowing for improved energy performance and energy savings.

Read more about TOPAs in the Cork Independent and the TOPAs website.