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Inside Innovation

R8 Technologies

Trevor Miles, UK Area Manager of R8 Technologies, talks to UKGBC about what it means to be an innovator in the UK built environment.

What is your elevator pitch?

The R8 Digital Operator is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution enabling building automation systems to be updated continuously every 15 minutes using the latest AI and machine learning technology to calculate the best settings. Those settings will automatically be written (yes correct – automatically be written!) back into the building management system (BMS). This results in heating, ventilation and air conditioning being continuously optimised 24/7 – 365 days a year. We create a dynamic digital twin of the HVAC equipment for each building so that we can understand the interrelationships between the different systems. There is a full menu behind the dashboard, providing information for every single space, which could be 1,000s of spaces in a large building, enabling granular insights on building climate and performance. This gives the Digital Operator a unique perspective and a huge amount of insight into what it is controlling, so it can identify where the inefficiencies are and how to address those.

We manage buildings not just for optimised energy consumption, but also to provide the best environmental conditions for the occupants so they are comfortable and can work productively. We also try to operate the building in a way that is gentler on the equipment, so it performs better and lasts longer and doesn’t need to be replaced as frequently, making it more cost-effective and sustainable.

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning is our focus, but we use data from other areas (such as building occupancy and climate sensors) to improve the intelligence that we can use to manage the HVAC and resulting climate / air quality. We look at how buildings have responded to other weather events in the past, and use things like weather and occupancy forecasts and energy price predictions to provide better inputs that optimise the way we manage buildings.

How did you get to where you are today?

R8 was founded in 2017. The company started in Tallinn in Estonia, which is the “Silicon Valley of Europe”. The founders had a strong background in HVAC, machine learning and AI technologies and the best practical application of them. They had a hypothesis that BMS and HVAC systems could benefit from, and they started testing their hypothesis and later set up R8 Technologies. They had several initial investors with others joining as they saw the impact of the solution.

What does innovation mean to you?

For me innovation means doing things better, rethinking how to do things, and changing mindsets. At R8 Technologies there is a deliberate programme of work to continue to innovate and improve the product. With SaaS software you can continue to make improvements, which is the journey we are on.

How hungry is the built environment for innovation?

The potential for innovation is huge, but I think there is a capacity issue for people who are often very challenged with their workloads. Building managers, for example, have a whole stack of things to do, so actually finding the bandwidth and time to break out of how you normally operate and think about things can be a challenge. Equally, it is potentially very rewarding to be able to offer new and better ways of doing things and, in some cases, even doing things you couldn’t do before.

What needs to change to encourage innovation in the built environment?

More pathways for people to access the world of HVAC and BMS management. Gaining a broader perspective is important, as a lot of innovation happens when you are able to look across different areas to see where there are barriers and consequently come up with solutions or at least improvements to address those barriers.

What are the biggest challenges you have faced as a start-up?

I’ve worked with R8 Technologies for a year, so I haven’t been on the journey all the way through. Inevitably developing the product and continuously updating it is a huge priority. One of the biggest challenges is probably prioritisation of new features. There are always lots of things that you want to bring to the market, but you must bring them forward at the right time and make sure the right support is available when they are released so that people can get the right experience. Another thing we believe in strongly, is making things easy for the customers, so they don’t have to do anything to benefit from our solution. We go the extra mile to keep it as simple and easy as possible for them.

What’s your advice to new innovators and start-ups in the built environment?

Do your homework in terms of what’s out there already and what the competition is. Identify where the opportunities are. The potential is enormous. Making sure that you have the right balance of skills in your teams covering the commercial, technical, and marketing world is very important if you are trying to get traction with a new company.

What’s next for your company?

At the moment we are offering a very responsive control system that accounts for things like fluctuations in energy prices and being able to use energy not just efficiently but when it is cheapest, thereby being able to change the profile of how energy is consumed. In Estonia we are also able to operate a demand response service so that customers get an additional income stream from the grid operation for helping to balance the grid during times of stress and are looking to bring the is to all the countries we operate in. This service (the R8 Virtual Power Plant) will be available in more countries in 2023.

Learn more about R8 Technologies

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