Clevernet unveils Ecco platform to drive building efficiency

Smart building company Clevernet has unveiled a new platform to help cut the carbon footprint of commercial buildings. The Ecco platform, which stands for energy, carbon, clean air optimisation, uses a mixture of wireless technology and software to monitor and control energy usage and carbon emissions to help the owners of commercial buildings reach their sustainability targets.

Irish-based Clevernet, which was founded in 2020 by Shane Deasy, Russell McQuillan, Kieran McCrea and Gareth Morgan, has been working with some early adopters in implementing the technology in buildings across the UK and Ireland.

Early tests have shown a 10 per cent decline in energy intensity in buildings across the Clevernet portfolio, while the levels of carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted by the buildings fell by a similar amount. At the same time Clevernet says, the system can help with the comfort and wellbeing of the buildings’ occupants, with cleaner air one of the benefits of the smart system.

It also uses some artificial intelligence to help manage the system.

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“Once we bring a new building on board there’s probably 12 months of heavy lifting from a manual perspective,” Mr Deasy said. “After that we’re able to put in software and machine learning to understand what’s happening with the building – the weather conditions outside, what the occupancy profile of the building is, what the required set points in the building are.”

Ecco is a subscription-based platform providing the potential for recurring revenues for the business. Clevernet’s revenue has doubled in the past two years, reaching €2.5 million and is continuing to rise. That growth was helped in part by the recent energy crisis, Mr Deasy said. “That transformed our business and it exploded from there as we got all these inquiries and started getting involved with a lot of large organisations,” he said.

However, he warned the recent decline in energy costs may cause companies to row back on some of the efficiency initiatives they had put in place. “My fear now is that as the cost starts to reduce a lot of SME businesses are beginning to take the foot off the accelerator when it comes to energy conservation because it’s not hitting their back pocket.”

Clevernet is now looking to Europe for further growth with the official launch of Ecco. There are plans to grow the team in Ireland and the UK, recruiting in areas such as software development, project management and engineering.

It is also developing its building platform further, adding digital screens to some buildings to display critical data, updated in real time, to their occupants.

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