We had the opportunity to discuss with Gaël Cazamea-Catalan, Energy Manager at advizeo, about our commitment and responsibility as engineers and citizens in the world after Covid-19.
How would you describe your job?
Energy Management aims to: consume less, consume better, achieve load savings, while guaranteeing users permanent access to the energy they need. Energy Manager supports any player consuming energy in the management and the implementation of energy management procedures.
What is our approach?
First of all, in order to reduce your energy consumption, you have to quantify it. For this, we have several options: we can retrieve consumption data via the supplier’s invoices or directly via the energy distributor. We also use IoT sensors communicating in LoraWan to read the energy and water meters, allowing us to have real-time data.
Once the data has been acquired, it must be processed and analyzed. For this reason, the company has developed its own ADVIZEO application. This application allows us to view and analyze the energy consumption data of our customers. A data center supports us to ensure the quality of the data used. The analysis allows us to detect energy reduction potentials, define action plans, and ultimately an energy management strategy.
The last step, and for me the most important and concrete, is to implement the defined action plans. What we do not imagine at the beginning, is that in a building, there are a multitude of different actors and whose objectives and needs are multiple: owner, tenant, user, technical team, control office, design office, etc. Energy being a central point of use and comfort in the building, it generally affects all stakeholders. To implement energy management actions, it is necessary to interact on the ground considering all different stakeholders. Otherwise, there is no result.
What does a typical day look like for you?
There is no typical day really, I go from analysis work in the office to site visits, IoT sensor instrumentation or even meetings with clients to animate action plans. This is what is very interesting in this profession: the diversity of the missions and the actors that we meet.
To summarize, this is a very transversal job, which requires technical know-how, support, and pedagogy for raising awareness and explaining the process. It is about understanding the building as a whole, in order to use it in the most efficient way.
How do you see your profession in the world after the Covid-19 crisis?
We live in a finite world, with finite resources, where we cannot always consume more unreasonably. We have known that for a long time, but the difference is that today we have been able to live with these significant consequences on our environment.
More than ever, we must regain control of our consumption, in order to reduce our impact on the environment. The objective is to strive for efficiency to allow a rational and virtuous use of our resources.
The building sector is the leading consumer of energy in France, it is in fact a key energy saving lever. Quantifying and being aware of what we consume allows us to precisely control our energy production. Therefore, we reduce waste and we enter an economy approach. The slogan of the French association Négawatt “The best kilowatt hour is the one that is not consumed”, sums up well in my opinion the objective to follow.
The response to the various problems and challenges of our change in consumption will depend on a rational use of energy and a more efficient implementation of technology. These actions are collective, and everyone’s business: citizen, state, company and community. I think that all the actors who implement means to measure, control and limit their impacts on their near or distant environments have an important role to play today, for the world of tomorrow.
As an expert in energy efficiency, we have this role of advice and support, with our customers of course, but more broadly with all those involved in the energy transition.
At advizeo, we strive not only to provide effective technology but to give the keys to our customers to move the lines inside their organizations.
For this, it is essential to create a functional and proven frame of reference: this allows us to have a common basis for discussion with all the actors and to avoid drifts, or the reproduction of known errors.
The goal is to find a solution that it is effective and that can be used on a large scale. This is why we are developing energy management solutions accessible to the greatest number of companies – tertiary as well as industrial – and communities.
How does Advizeo’s approach resonate strongly with the Engineers & Citizens approach of the setec group?
Setec has decided, by its Engineers & Citizens approach, to reflect on its work in relation to the challenges of tomorrow. Several themes have been determined as an axis of reflection to be integrated, such as questions on low tech, resource management over the building life cycle, the concept of comfort, smart cities, etc.
The result is a strong observation: we need to know the impact of our projects and integrate efficiency into them.
Consuming less, better and efficiently is the hallmark of the solution developed by ADVIZEO and its Energy Managers. As a building and energy expert, we have a duty to share the methods and tools that allow the energy transition that more and more citizens are calling for.
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