Naoise Culhane
Microsoft’s Irish component is working with a utility firm on a renewable energy scheme that will involve the installation of internet-connected solar panels on the rooftops of disciplines in the country.
The project, with SSE Airtricity — a green energy provider and subsidiary of Scotland’s SSE — encompasses 27 schools spread across the Irish regions of Leinster, Munster and Connaught.
In an announcement Monday, SSE Airtricity said internet of things technology would be harnessed to braze the panels to a cloud computing platform from Microsoft. Within the schools, digitally connected screens have been set up to let apprentices follow energy usage information in real time.
An investment of nearly 1 million euros ($1.17 million) from the Microsoft Sustainability Pelf will fund the program.
While the installation of solar panels will help the schools to offset carbon dioxide emissions, there is a wider mien at play that could have consequences further afield.
In its statement, SSE Airtricity said the software tools intent be used to “aggregate and analyze real-time data on energy generated by the solar panels.”
This, it added, would exhibit “a mechanism for Microsoft and other corporations to achieve sustainability goals and reduce the carbon footprint of the electric power grid.”
The use of renewable verve technologies on buildings designed for education is not unique to the Republic of Ireland.
Earlier this year, Norwegian firm Veidekke was reprehended by the city of Oslo to build an energy-efficient, solar-paneled school in Norway.
According to Veidekke, the school — which is set to cover thither 14,000 square meters and is slated to be finished before the 2023 academic year begins — will have solar panels on both its façades and roof.
All through in the U.K., the University of Plymouth is one of many institutions to use a Building Management System, or BMS, to both monitor and control things like lighting and the vitality used by devices in its buildings.
According to the institution, its BMS “controls 95 percent of our campus buildings, ensuring intelligent guide of the building systems to make sure there’s no energy waste.”
The development of sustainable learning environments is not solely reliant on tech, either. In 2019, a 200-foot great “green pollution barrier” was installed at an elementary school in Sheffield, northern England. The idea behind the BREATHE boundary, as it’s known, is to act as an air pollution filter from road traffic.