More Efficient Building Automation Thanks to High-Quality Weather Data!

Leicom ITEC AG, a member of the Leicom Group, has developed a software driver for the integration of weather data into the Niagara building automation framework.

The integration of weather data into building automation enables a significant increase in efficiency in the heat and energy management of buildings, resulting in a sustainable reduction of heating and electricity costs. To ensure that the weather data also delivers real added value, Leicom ITEC AG has chosen to integrate hyperlocal and most accurate weather data from Meteomatics' Weather API.

45% of Switzerland's primary energy consumption is spent on buildings today. A large proportion of this is for heating, hot water and air conditioning. Consequently, there is an enormous potential to achieve greater energy efficiency and realize electricity savings in this sector, by improving energy consumption and reducing waste through better informing heating systems. Building automation software is becoming increasingly relevant in addition to the energy insulation of buildings achieved through the integration of smart building automation, allowing facility mangers and building owners the opportunity to save a significant amount of energy and reduce their CO2 emissions, and heating costs.

The energy management and energy consumption of a building is very much dependent on the ambient temperature as well as other weather influences. If the sun is shining outside and the average temperature is, for example, 23 degrees, most buildings in Switzerland no longer require heat for heating. However, since most heating systems require a certain lead time (floor heating systems, for example, up to 8 hours) until the desired temperature effects are achieved indoors, it is important to know the outside temperature development and other weather influences for the following hours at an early stage and to integrate them into the heating planning.

ITEC's newly developed weather data software driver called "ITEC Meteo Service" now enables exactly this. With the driver, hyperlocal weather data about future outdoor temperatures, solar radiation, wind strength, snowfall and many other weather influences can be integrated directly into the building automation software. Users thus have the possibility to optimize the building automation to the surrounding weather conditions, which not only saves energy, CO2 and costs, but also increases the well-being of the people inside the building (not too hot, not too cold).

To use the software driver and the weather data, users need not only the driver but also an API access from Meteomatics, which provides the weather data. Meteomatics is a Swiss company that specializes in providing hyperlocal and high-quality weather data. To really use the software driver, however, even the smallest API package from Meteomatics (Entry Level) is sufficient, which can be purchased from 40 CHF per month. Meteomatics as well as ITEC are happy to help users to set up the software driver and API access.