About 470 students between the ages of 11 and 15 attend the College Pierre de Ronsard in the small Loire Valley town of Mer. In terms of French school buildings, this one is newer and more energy efficient than most. The 11-year-old middle school is well-insulated, and has windows with double-pane glass. But it wasn’t always comfortable inside. For many years, because of a strong north-south exposure, it was impossible to maintain consistent temperature room-by-room. [caption id="attachment_90742" align="alignright" width="462"]

Tania Julien, woman with red hair and blue eyes, is building manager at the College Pierre de Ronsard in Mer, France.

Tania Julien, building manager at College Pierre de Ronsard in Mer, France. Photo by Chris Welsch for Microsoft.[/caption] “We couldn’t regulate the heating,” says Tania Julien, the building manager. “Sometimes part of the building was too hot, sometimes too cold.” In its efforts to create a comfortable learning environment for students and teachers, the school became a pioneer in using “smart building” technology. After a process of trial and error and much improvement in technology, the school has become a strong example of how the Internet of Things (IoT) and predictive artificial intelligence (AI) can not only make buildings more comfortable but achieve significant energy savings. Sebastien Depeyre is the director of buildings for the department of Loir-and-Cher in central France (a French department is something like a state). To address the problems at the school, he agreed to work together with Vertuoz, a subsidiary of the French company ENGIE, in installing and refining a new system to regulate the temperature room-by-room. “Our objective was not so much to save energy,” recalls Depeyre, “but really to make it comfortable to use.” According to the European Commission, about 40 percent of all energy consumed goes into heating and lighting buildings in Europe, and about 75 percent of them are energy inefficient, meaning much of that energy is wasted. The story of the College Pierre de Ronsard is instructive: Its experiment in smart-building technology not only addressed the issue of comfort but saved more than 20 percent per year on its energy bill. The process was not always smooth. “We went through a bit of a rough patch at first. It was a little difficult because there were things we had to build together, but that was part of the game and part of the value in having a partner,” Depeyre says. To achieve control of the heat room-by-room, the school installed wireless, battery-free sensors to detect temperature and the presence of people in every room, and wireless controls on each radiator so that they can be operated remotely. In the first version of the system, the sensors sent data via radio waves to a computer and control system on site, which was adjusted manually. A few years after the first version was installed, the system is much refined. The data makes its way the cloud platform where a system designed by Vertuoz uses Azure IoT and machine learning to monitor and adjust the atmosphere in the building room-by-room. If no one is present, the heat lowers. In an occupied classroom, a steady 19 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit) is produced, keeping students and teachers comfortable. Ventilation can also be adjusted to improve air quality. [caption id="attachment_90744" align="alignleft" width="462"]

Man smiling in hallway of a French middle school in Mer, France.

Sebastien Depeyre, director of buildings for the Department of Loir-et-Cher. Photo by Chris Welsch for Microsoft.[/caption] “Above all, it’s an AI system that says, well, I know that part of the building reacts this way, and another that way. We give it objectives and it knows what to do,” Depeyre says. Now, Vertuoz Control systems, like the one at the College Pierre de Ronsard, have been installed in more than 350 buildings in France, and Vertuoz is monitoring more than 90,000 buildings. According to Frederic Gailliot, marketing director for Vertuoz, the use of Vertuoz solutions saves about 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. The company says the average energy savings is about 25 percent, and those savings pay for the cost of the system within three to five years. Gailliot says about one third of public buildings in Europe are schools, and many of them were built before high standards of energy efficiency were written into building codes. Solutions like Vertuoz Control can deliver results without the expense or time required to renovate. “The problem is, how do you create value in the short term?” he asks. “The digital solutions are an incredible response to the current challenges for global energy efficiency.”

In France, schools warm to systems with AI that increase comfort, reduce energy use

AI training program helps close gender gap, bringing fresh faces to Europe’s digital workforce

With carbon capture on an industrial scale, Norway plans for a greener future

As the world goes digital, datacenters that make the cloud work look to renewable energy sources

Taste of success: FoodCloud uses technology to get surplus food to nonprofits more efficiently

’Critical to our modern society’: How datacenters power everyday necessities

HoloLens 2 helps Novo Nordisk employees see work in new ways

Technology helps farmers weather the storm (or drought) via crop insurance

How one of the world’s largest wind companies is using AI to capture more energy

Saving the wine, one grape at a time, from the perils of late-season frost caused by climate change

Learning from ‘digital frontrunners’ will help us grow business competitiveness and our quality-of-life

How Microsoft’s new datacenter region in Sweden incorporates the company’s sustainability commitments