Between the Poles

OpenGridMap: open, crowdsourced project to map power grid infrastructure

Earlier this year on a Sunday renewable power supplied almost all of Germany’s power demand, a major milestone in Germany's “Energiewende” policy.  The transformation of the grid (called by some a revolution) is being driven by distributed energy (DER) and smart devices.  It requires profound changes to how we monitor and manage the power grid and to be able to understand the impact of  the integration of more distributed intermittent sources and new consumer, industrial, and commercial electronics requires data and tools that only exist partially today.

If you are familiar with OpenStreetMap (OSM), then the OpenGridMap project is not that different except that it focusses on mapping electric power infrastructure instead of transportation.  I had heard rumours about an OSM-like project in Germany to map electric power infrastructure several years ago, but was unable to find more information about it.  OpenGridMap is an new open community that crowdsources power grid geospatial location and related data to be used for research purposes.  The goal is to collect reliable grid data to enable researchers to conduct simulation studies. OpenGridMap is intended to support the entire process from data collection to making grid data available for various applications. An OpenGridMap app for Android for people interested in helping to collect grid infrastructure data is available on Playstore.

Using OpenGridMap data analytics developed at the Technical University (TU) Munich generates a power grid model in the form of a Common Information Model (CIM) description file which provides the basis for a power grid simulation model.  Experiments with OpenGridMap data have demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach for grid modeling and simulation.  It is expected that as more data is collected it will be possible to generate power grid simulations of larger size, more variety and more accuracy than the currently available state-of-the-art test power grids.

The project was initiated by Professor Hans-Arno Jacobsen, Chair of Business Information Systems, and José Rivera at the Technical University of Munich.  It is supported by a German Federal Ministry of Education and Research grant and the Alexander von Humbolt Foundation.  Collaborators include Siemens AG, World Bank's ESMAP, the Technical University Berlin's VEREDELE project and Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) KOSiNeK project.

Related links

OpenGridMap: An Open Platform for Inferring Power Grids with Crowdsourced Data, José Rivera , Christoph Goebel, David Sardari, Hans-Arno Jacobsen, Energy Informatics, Volume 9424 of the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science pp 179-191, 06 January 2016

OpenGridMap: towards automatic power grid simulation model generation from crowdsourced data Rivera, J., Leimhofer, J. & Jacobsen, HA. Comput Sci Res Dev (2016). doi:10.1007/s00450-016-0317-4

China joins Japan, U.S. and Canada in launching greenhouse gas observing satellite

On December 21, 2016 China launched a 620 kg micro-satellite on a Long March-2D rocket to monitor its greenhouse gas emissions. The TanSat satellite is in a sun synchronous orbit 700 km above the earth and will monitor the concentration, distribution and flow of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. TanSat will take readings of global carbon dioxide every 16 days, accurate to at least 4 parts per million.

Japan

On January 23, 2009, Japan launched the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT). It measures the densities of carbon dioxide and methane from 56,000 locations on the Earth's atmosphere. GOSAT was developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Japanese Ministry of the Environment and National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) use the data to track greenhouse gases.

U.S.

On July 2, 2014 NASA launched the OCO-2 satellite on a Delta II rocket to study carbon dioxide concentrations and distributions in the atmosphere. OCO-2 makes measurements in three different spectral bands over four to eight different footprints of approximately 1.29 km × 2.25 km each. About 24 soundings are collected per second while in sunlight. Of these about 10% are sufficiently cloud free for further analysis. One spectral band is used for column measurements of oxygen (A-band), and two are used for column measurements of carbon dioxide.

Canada

On June 21, 2016 Canada's GHGSat Inc. launched its Claire nanosatellite. Claire can measure emissions from any industrial site in the world. Greenhouse gases can be monitored with a precision in parts per million / billion, depending on the gas, with a geospatial resolution in tens of meters. On December 9, 2016, Claire measured emissions from a cement plant in South Africa, its 500th measurement.

TanSat OCO-2 GOSAT GHGSat

Smart building market expected to grow 34% annually

A report "Smart Building Market - Global Forecast to 2021" projects that  the smart building market will grow by 34 % annually from 2016 through 2021.  The market size, estimated at $ 5.7 Billion in 2016, is expected to grow to $ 25 Billion in 2021.  From Markets and Markets' perspective the smart building industry is comprised of intelligent security systems, building energy management systems, infrastructure management systems (parking, water, and elevators), and network and communications management systems.  The major vendors covered in the smart building market for this study include ABB Group (Switzerland), International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation (U.S.), Schneider Electric SE (France), Siemens AG (Germany), Cisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.), Honeywell International Inc.(U.S), Delta Controls (Canada), Johnson Controls (U.S), United Technologies Corporation (U.S), and BuildingIQ (Australia).  Accenture, TCS, Wipro, HP, and Capgemini are market players providing assessment, consulting, system integration, and support services to smart building solutions.

The drivers for this boom in smart building technology are energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions, government initiatives for smart building projects, growing demand for integrated security and safety systems, and the proliferation of sensors and smart appliances comprising the Internet of Things (IoT).

According to the International Energy Agency, about 40% of the world’s energy is consumed by buildings.  72% of electric power demand in the U.S. is from buildings.  Growing urbanization is expected to increase energy demand from buildings. 

Europe's 20-20-20 goal and mandating near-zero-energy buildings starting in 2018/2019 is expected to drive the largest geographic market share in the smart building market.

3D model-based design is transforming construction in the Netherlands

At the GeoBIM Building and Infrastructure Conference in Amsterdam, Ingeborg Ligtenberg, Senior Project manager for Mega Projects, described how the Dutch highway authority Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) is piloting a very different approach to highway construction.  Rijkswaterstaat is responsible for the design, construction, management and maintenance of the main infrastructure facilities in the Netherlands including the national road network, waterway network and sluices. 

Background

By way of background, the highway plan-design-build process that has been used over at least the past 25 years, starts off with a complete (re)survey of the project terrain to create a basemap on which the design is based. Existing as-builts in the area are rarely if ever consulted.  The deliverables from the design process are paper drawings which are used by construction contractors to build the project.  After construction is complete construction as-builts are submitted to the owner, but these are not "sealed", meaning nobody signs off on them putting their professional reputation behind their accuracy and reliability.  Practically what this means is that in the transportation industry, as-builts are treated as unreliable information and are rarely consulted.

At SPAR 3D 2013 Ron Singh, Engineering Automation Manager/Chief of Surveys, Oregon Department of Transportation (DoT) made a startling proposal that would stand the traditional highway construction process on its head. He proposed that the DoT should specify the data it needs and this data including BIM models and LIDAR scans would be collected by the DoT from the contractors during and after a highway construction project.  The data would be saved in a geospatially-enabled database maintained by the DoT.  One of the implications of this approach is that when a new project is initiated in the same area over 80 % of the necessary survey-grade information would already be available in the DoT's database, which would make the traditional complete resurvey unnecessary - saving time and money. 

As an example of how data reuse can save time and money, the Oregon DoT's first automated machine guidance (AMG) project was in 1997.   At that time in Oregon a few forward-looking contractors had invested in AMG technology foreseeing that it would save them money.  These forward-looking contractors were winning bids by lowering their estimates just enough to beat other contractors. They found that AMG technology did save a lot of money.  But the savings were going to the contractors, not to the DoT.  To redress this, starting in early 2015, the DoT began specifying on its bid web site that projects were "AMG ready" meaning that the DoT was making available provide all the data it had which could be download to see design BIM models, mobile LiDAR, overflight data, and so on.  The effect has been to drive bids down, because there is less risk for the contractor.  As a result the DoT is now sharing in the savings.

Rijkswaterstaat pilots

At the first GeoBIM conference in Amsterdam, Jothijs van Gaalen gave some real world examples of highway construction transformation based on GIS+BIM integration including using laser scanning/LiDAR for reality capture at the beginning of a design/construction project. 

The Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) board is convinced of the benefits of BIM and BIM/geospatial integration and decided initially to roll out BIM on four design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) projects with the intention to require BIM on all DBFM-contracts in the future.

One of these projects is a highway expansion project for the highway connecting Schiphol-Amsterdam-Almere or SAA.  The objective of the SAA project was to improve the accessibility and quality of life within the SAA corridor. This includes the improvement of the natural and social environment and economic development and employment opportunities in the northern Randstad region.  A stretch of the highway is shown before and after the highway widening.

On many highway projects RWS had experienced information flow problems due to different formats and data models.  This not only necessitated major data conversion efforts, but also inhibited collaboration.  One of the goals of the SAA project was to improve information flow which was expected to also improve the flow of asset information for reuse during the maintenance phase of the highway.

A critical part of the RWS' new approach was the Information Delivery Specification (ILS). The ILS specified the general aspects of the required information including formats, standards, structure, and expected quality (timeliness and reliability) of the information.  The ILS was a contractual obligation that also required the contractor to accept new versions of standards on a yearly basis.  The standards that were adopted to ensure a uniform flow of structured information include VISI (an open communication standard for the construction industry based on XML), National Concept Type Library (CB-NL), Object Type Library (OTL), and COINS.

Today RWS is receiving a quarterly delivery of data from the contractor compliant with the ILS.  This is a remarkable achievement that required a lot of hard work during this first project.  But now that contractors are familiar with the standards and the ILS concept, it is expected that ensuring a uniform flow of information will be easier in future projects.  The next challenge is enabling this data to be used for asset management during the maintenance phase of the project.

Reusing data on future projects

 In response to a question, Ingeborg Ligtenberg said that this new approach was still in its initial phases but that the data would likely be made available to designers and contractors for future projects.  It would be made available on an "as is" basis, which sounds similar to how the Oregon DoT makes its data available on its bid site. 

As Ron Singh has pointed out, there is tremendous value in this data, but the value is only there if in the future engineers feel confident in using the data.  If very accurate and rich data were collected during and after construction including, critically, its lineage in the form of metadata about how and when it was captured, so that a future engineering user would have no reason not to trust its provenance and reliability, then there should be nothing to prevent the data from being reused in future projects - saving time and money.

Autonomous vehicles

One of the consumers of this digital highway information may be autonomous vehicles.  In-vehicle sensing is limited in its ability to enable safe and reliable driving under all conditions.  For example, on snowy roads, lane markings may not be visible. Such driving conditions will require the autonomous vehicle to be equipped with ultra-accurate maps to augment in-vehicle sensing systems.  Pre-loaded high-precision maps would enable autonomous vehicles to overcome many of these challenges – staying within lanes when wintry conditions obscure the lane markers. This will require sophisticated mapping systems and ultra-accurate and reliable DoT data to enable vehicles to navigate under challenging conditions.

Canada prices carbon

The Canadian government has announced a a pan-Canadian policy on climate change including a floor price on carbon beginning in 2018.  The Paris agreement commits Canada to a 30 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases from 2005 levels by 2030.  The floor price of carbon starts at a minimum of $10 per tonne of GHG emissions in 2018, rising by $10 each year to $50 per tonne by 2022. All of the money raised will be returned to the respective provinces, who can, in turn, distribute those funds to their citizens in the form of tax cuts.  The federal program will be compatible with existing provincial carbon pricing programs.  Ontario and Quebec already have a cap-and-trade program.  British Columbia already has a carbon tax of $30 per tonne.  Alberta has announced it will have a $20 per tonne carbon tax beginning in 2017, rising to $30 a tonne in 2018.  Eight of ten provinces have signed onto the agreement.  The federal government said it will impose a carbon price on the two non-signatory jurisdictions, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The final agreement includes a list of already announced measures including new building codes to improve building energy efficiency, more charging stations for electric cars, expanding clean electricity sources and upgrading power grids.

Developing a national 3D strategy in the Netherlands

At the GeoBIM Building and Infrastructure Conference in Amsterdam Rob van de Velde and Friso Penninga of Geonovum presented an overview of what has been achieved to date with respect to 3D data and technology at the national level in the Netherlands and what they see as the next major step, the development of a national 3D strategy. 

 

BIM and geospatial (2D and 3D) are key underpinnings of 3D.  The Netherlands has been at the forefront of implementing BIM in the construction industry.  Just as importantly in the long term, the Netherlands has been leading the geospatial-BIM integration initiative.  It has long been recognized that geospatial/BIM integration is essential for building and infrastructure operation and maintenance or what is referred to as full-lifecycle BIM.

 

Years ago private Dutch engineering and construction companies began adopting an integrated geospatial/BIM approach to construction.  I blogged previously about a firm Royal BAM Group nv / BAM Infraconsult that adopted integrated BIM and GIS because many of its projects require full life-cycle BIM.  At the first GeoBIM conference in Amsterdam, Jothijs van Gaalen gave some real world examples of Design, Build, Finance and Maintain (DBFM) highway construction that included GIS+BIM integration. BAM's motivation for investing in BIM+GIS are market developments especially more complex construction assignments and an increasing demand from customers for service provision throughout the entire life cycle of a project.   As another example, ARCADIS Netherlands has delivered a number of projects that integrate geospatial into the design process. 

The Netherlands has also been leading in the development and application of open BIM/geospatial standards‎ in the construction industry including NL/SfB, BS&I, ETIM, CB-NL, IMGeo, CityGML, NLCS, GB-CAS, COINS, IFC, VISI, SALES, National Model BIM Protocol, and National Model BIM Implementation Plan.  The Netherlands has created a BIM Loket (BIM Gateway) that is intended to be a national portal for information about BIM and for management of open BIM standards in the Netherlands.  It provides a central information centre for open BIM standards including related geospatial standards. 

Geospatial

Within government the Environment Planning Act is responsible for a growing focus on the physical environment.  There is also a greater desire for an integrated approach to modeling the physical environment.  Citizens are asking questions that require accurate 3D modeling, for example, noise, air quality, light and shadow, and viewports.

There have been several initiatives at the national level in the Netherlands.

• 2010 3D pilot exploring possibilities of 3D including IMGeo and CityGML
• 2012 3D pilot exploring Geo-BIM integration
• 2014 "Breakthrough 3D" - application of 3D in many domains

The last "Breakthrough 3D" initiative revealed that 3D technology had matured and that there were many initiatives asking for uniform 3D data.

BIM

The Dutch Building Information Council (BIR) has been encouraging BIM for a long time - I blogged about BIR and BIM in the Netherlands previously.  One of my takeways from the recent RICS BIM conference in London was that there is a desperate need for standards, especially to classify the huge amount of date in addition to the 3D geometry that accumulates during a construction project.  Much of this data would be useful to the FM folks who are responsible for operating and maintaining the building after construction if it were accessible.

From both the perspective of geospatial data for modeling the environment and BIM data for modeling the built environment, it's time for the next step:  a government initiative for a national 3D strategy.  The concept is to create a 3D production chain, capable of creating timely, accurate and reliable 3D geo-information.

Gap analysis - what's available vs what's needed

The Netherlands has a digital elevation model ( AHN or Actual Height Model) with nationwide coverage but the update cycle is on the order of eight years.  What's needed is a nationwide point cloud that is updated at least once a year.  There are a number of ways including new technologies this could help achieve this.

The Netherlands has national 2D core data, large scale topographic data that is open and universally accessible.  It has no equivalent in 3D.  One way to generate this rapidly are reliable techniques for automating the extraction of buildings, infrastructure and natural features from point clouds.

The Netherlands has a national portal for disseminating 2D data.  The national geoportal PDOK has experienced  3-4 billion hits in 2016.  For 3D data, PDOK needs to be upgraded to be able to serve 3D data. 

 

For 3D data there are standards for exchanging 3D data about cities and BIM model such as CityGML and IFC.  What's needed are standards for distributing and viewing 3D data.  Another important outstanding challenge is developing an interface between CityGML and IFC.

Rob emphasized that developing a national 3D standard is about identifying and involving stakeholders, understanding user requirements, and realizing the individual components, but more importantly it is about aligning individual initiatives, thus optimizing 3D supply chain.

Net zero energy building market growing rapidly

Energy efficiency

The IEA has projected that a cumulative $44 trillion in investment will be needed in the global energy supply over the next 15 years. Another $23 trillion will be required for energy efficiency improvements.  Worldwide 40% of energy is consumed by buildings.  In the U.S. 70 % of electric power goes to buildings.  Measures aimed at improving the efficiency of buildings have been introduced in Europe, the U.S., Japan and other jurisdictions.

Zero energy buildings

Zero energy buildings are loosely defined as buildings that generate as much energy as they consume.  But there is as yet no single standards body defining what a zero energy building is.  Different countries and even within the same country different bodies define zero energy buildings in different ways.  According to a new report from Navigant Research, global zero energy building revenue is projected to grow from less than $100 billion in 2016 to $1.4 trillion by 2035.

Nearly zero energy buildings in the E.U.

The European Union (EU) has taken a leading role in focussing energy conservation efforts on the energy efficiency of buildings.  The EU has mandatory carbon emission reduction standards, referred to as the 20-20-20 standard, which among other things requires the EU to improve energy efficiency by 20% by 2020.  Another important objective is reducing its dependence on imported energy, which currently accounts for half of EU energy usage.  In 2002 the European Commission promulgated the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) which requires all EU member states to upgrade their building regulations and to introduce energy certification schemes for buildings.  About a year ago the European Commission (EC) proposed a new Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) , also known as the EPBD recast, which imposes a legal obligation for all member states to establish energy saving schemes, with the public sector leading by example.

Energy efficiency is especially critical for Germany which not only needs to comply with the 20-20-20 standard, but also to find energy sources to replace its (non-emitting) nuclear power plants that are scheduled to be closed by 2022.  In Germany buildings currently account for 40 percent of power consumption and a third of CO2 emissions. The German 40 year master plan calls for aggressive energy efficiency policies including new insulation standards and for all buildings in Germany to be refurbished in line with the new insulation standards by 2050, reducing energy requirements for heating by 20 percent by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, and providing tax relief on energy taxes to companies contributing to energy savings.

A major area of focus in the EU is “nearly zero energy” buildings.  A nearly zero energy building on average over a year generates as much energy from renewable energy sources as it consumes.  For new buildings, the EPBD recast fixes 2020/2021 as the deadline for all new buildings to be designed to be nearly zero energy.  For public buildings the deadline is even sooner, by 2018/2019.

Zero emissions buildings in Japan

Japan‘s announced mid-term emission reduction target is to cut Japan's GHG emissions by 25% by 2020 compared with 1990, subject to international negotiations.  But Japan has said that it plans to revise this target in light of the Fukushima accident and presumably in light of the decision to shut down its nuclear power plants by 2040.  According to an analysis by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the largest reduction will need to be realized in commercial sector, by about 27%. Residential/commercial-sector accounts for 30% or more of final energy consumption and has increased remarkably compared to the industrial and transportation sectors.  Energy saving measures for commercial buildings are urgently required, since the commercial sector including office buildings consumes more than half of total energy consumption in the residential/commercial sector. Moreover its growth has been more striking than that of the residential sector.

The Government of Japan put forward its "zero emissions buildings" target in April, 2009.  It defines a zero emissions building (ZEB) as one that has net zero CO2 emissions on an annual basis through energy efficiency and renewable energy generation on-site.  The announced objective ia that all new public buildings will be zero emissions by 2030.

Zero net energy buildings in the U.S.

The U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) requires that by 2030 all new Federal facilities must be "zero net energy" (ZNE) buildings.  On October 19, 2007, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) adopted aggressive targets for ZNE

• All new residential construction in California will be zero net energy by 2020
• All new commercial construction in California will be zero net energy by 2030
• 50% of existing commercial buildings will be retrofit to ZNE by 2030.

According to the New Buildings Institute (NBI) there are 332 ZNE (zero net energy) verified and emerging commercial and multifamily buildings in the U.S. and Canada. The ZNE buildings on this list have either achieved or committed to the goal of producing as much renewable energy onsite as they consume over the course of a year.

Progress of BIM for infrastructure in Europe

The European construction market amounts to € 1.2 trillion annually or 9.9% of total EU GDP.  There are 3.1 million organizations in the European construction industry of which more than 95% are SMEs.  As in many jurisdictions over a third of construction projects are overbudget or overschedule.

In January 15, 2014 the European Parliament passed the European Union Public Procurement Directive (EUPPD) which among other things recommended the use of building information modelling (BIM) for public works contracts to enable more efficient construction and building projects in Europe.  Passage of the bill allowed member states to encourage, specify or mandate the use of BIM for publicly funded construction and building projects in the EU by 2016.

Prior to that some EU governments had already mandated or had concrete plans to mandate BIM for publicly funded projects.  Finland, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway led BIM adoption in Europe.  At the recent GeoBIM Building and Infrastructure conference in Amsterdam, Kjetil Tonning, Vice President of the European Construction Industry Federation (FIEC), gave an overview of the status of BIM for infrastructure in the EU with the objective of determining whether BIM for infrastructure (horizontal BIM) is lagging behind BIM for buildings (vertical BIM) in Europe.  His assessment of various countries' progress with respect to BIM for infrastructure reveals that some countries are making rapid progress while others are lagging.

Germany

Last year Alexander Dobrindt, Bundesminister für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur (BMVI), announced a step-by-step plan for the introduction of BIM.  It requires three steps: a preparatory phase up to 2017, a pilot phase by 2020, and mandatory BIM is to be used from 2020 on all newly planned projects of the BMVI.  Dobrindt's goal is to make digital planning and building nationwide a standard. To achieve this the public sector has to act as a major builder in order to drive cultural change. The German government has set up a committee for reforming large construction project.  It has formulated the principle: "Erst digital, dann real bauen" (Build digitally first, then real).  Four pilot projects have been launched to obtain real world experience with BIM.  BMVI has developed a timetable for the planning and building of the future, which will make BIM a new standard for transport infrastructure projects by 2020.

Sweden

In Sweden a project BSAB to develop a classification system for buildings and civil engineering works has culminated in the development of a classification standard CoClass, which is based on international standards for classification and ISO standards for data transfer (ISO 12006-2).  BSAB is owned by the Swedish Building Centre, a company that is owned by 32 Swedish construction and FM organizations.

CoClass is the result of an extensive industry-wide development effort called BSAB 2.0 which ran for over a year and a half.  Unlike other classification systems the classification is BIM-based and is intended to cover the entire built environment through the full life cycle including operations and maintenance. The project has been supported by the the Swedish Building Centre, BIM Alliance Sweden, Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket), Cooperation Forum for state property developers and managers, PEAB, BEAst, Swedavia, Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL) and the Stockholm County Council (SCC) traffic management.  Trafikverket and others are now implementing CoClass.

Spain

The Spanish government's BIM roadmap foresees mandatory BIM for public infrastructure projects occurring after mandatory BIM for buildings.   But the Government's strategy has been delayed and at this time the timetable remains unclear.

BIM for Infrastructure in Europe

Kjetil Tonning concluded that BIM for infrastructure is lagging behind BIM for buildings in Europe.  EU policy could help correct this.  He mentioned climate change, circular economy, strategy on the urban environment, prevention of natural and man-made disasters, and the digital agenda as areas where EU policy initiatives would help accelerate the adoption of BIM for infrastructure by EU member states.