Last week, specialists from the energy and real estate sector met in Oslo at a seminar organized by Bisly called “New Era of Intelligent Buildings” to exchange ideas on several important topics around energy saving. Bisly, who’s also a part of the Estonian-Norwegian cooperation program Green ICT and a member of the Norwegian-Estonian Chamber of Commerce, shared its own experiences and plans for the future. As part of the Green ICT program, Bisly is in the process of creating a unified building management system that will become a convenient and cost-efficient platform for building managers. At the same time, Bisly’s intelligent building solution will help to reduce over-consumption in general, and thus plays a key role in investing in energy savings.

In the opening speech of the seminar held at the Estonian embassy, Lauri Bambus, Estonian ambassador to the Kingdom of Norway, also acknowledged that the current situation needs fast actions directed towards energy savings. We all need to make changes to our consumption habits and the good things is that innovative technologies and solutions will not only be convenient, but also help to make our actions more energy-efficient.

Oslo has put in place some of the world’s most ambitious climate goals. To work on those goals, an extra unit called KlimaOslo has been added to the city administration. The organization emphasises that both big and small measures can help us reduce the amount of greenhouse emissions together whilst turning cities into better places for living. Astrid Ståledotter Landstad, a representative of KlimaOslo, mentioned the construction sector as one of the biggest CO2 emission producers next to transportation and waste. To achieve the set targets, a climate strategy has been agreed upon for Oslo until the year 2030. The strategy includes five general climate goals and 16 focus points to achieving those goals. As an important aspect, Astrid mentioned that the owners and residents of buildings will be given several incentives to implement measures that’ll help improve the measuring process of energy consumption and reduce the overall energy consumption of buildings. She added that the challenges regarding energy consumption are very similar across all countries and that in order to create effective solutions and innovation, it’s vital for countries to cooperate with each other.

Astrid Ståledotter Landstad, KlimaOslo
Astrid Ståledotter Landstad, KlimaOslo

Ryte Venckuviene, EAS Norway’s export advisor, gave an overview of the possibilities of cross-border cooperation in the context of Estonia and Norway, stating the importance of projects in the framework of which joint business solutions are created and the partnership between two countries strengthened. Ryte also discussed how companies are supported when entering the Norwegian market and how, through various cooperation projects, Estonian companies can also do their part in helping to reach world-wide climate goals.

Ryte Venckuviene, Enterprise Estonia
Ryte Venckuviene, Enterprise Estonia

The overall consensus at the seminar was that ways of saving are being searched for in every field including the real estate sector, as buildings are responsible for a significant amount of CO2 emissions – nearly 50%. Bisly’s unique solution was of great interest for Norwegian companies both during the information day as well as during previous pilot projects. The first pilot projects launched within the framework of the Green ICT cooperation project are already in the works and helping to conserve energy and thus do their part in reducing CO2 emissions. There’s still a year left of Bisly’s Green ICT project and currently client feedback and experiences are being gathered to take it into consideration in the further development of the product.

First artificial intelligence elements are being tested in Bisly’s intelligent building technology. AI will help achieve both energy savings and the reduction of CO2 emissions, whilst increasing the efficiency of building management.  “The development of artificial intelligence has probably reached most homes in one way or another at this point. Now, Bisly’s intelligent building technology is about to let AI indoors as well – in both homes and offices,” stated Silver Sova, Bisly’s product lead, at the seminar.

Discussions regarding the possibilities for cooperation and increasing energy conservation will continue in May, when Bisly’s delegation is visiting its Norwegian partners once again.