Leading Canadian Research on Machine Learning to Create Cognitive Conservation
Written by: Gary Michor (CEO), Screaming Power Inc.
Screaming Power recently received funding through SOSCIP’s Accelerator HQP Grant that will further accelerate its research partnership with Ryerson University on integrating climate, market and energy consumption with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to create Cognitive Conservation.
Cognitive Conservation is a new idea and method developed by Screaming Power to describe its new cognitive framework to encourage improved decision-making by energy users. This Framework has 3 layers where applications communicate through a process layer with sensors and smart devices to make decisions based on goals and market status. The outcome will be balanced decision making using information gathered from historical data, current sensors / smart devices to provide adjustments that would be optimal to meet desired goals.
Conservation becomes “cognitive” when all the statically-configured buildings of a community or building portfolio are replaced with self-adjusting and self-aware buildings. Statically-configured buildings are not cognitive, because they need a human to make decisions and modify their configuration. The promise of Cognitive Conservation is that a smart community itself can find optimal ways to conserve and tune community building behavior to achieve its best performance with existing assets and market inputs. As the building portfolio becomes more integrated with external information, it will be able to optimize for events that have not happened but are likely to happen.
Dr. Cherie Ding, Professor at the Computer Science Department of Ryerson University says “Utilizing the existing research accomplishments, which have also been in part funded through SOSCIP, establishes a strong coordination between Academia and business. Screaming Power is establishing the first customer-centric universal toolset using mobile/cloud technology to deliver & share energy information electronically with energy utilities and their customers which is exciting real-life research for us all. This HQP grant provides a great opportunity for our graduate student to gain hands-on experience applying machine-learning techniques in real-world applications.”
Work to date has focused on building out its Mobile Energy Data Platform infrastructure with validated energy data from many data clouds and validating Screaming Power’s machine-learning/Artificial Intelligence (AI) models.
Screaming Power has invented and is now proposing a novel method for energy conservation through its Cognitive Conservation approach. This new approach leverages Screaming Power’s Mobile Energy Data Platform already implemented to improve decision-making by both energy users and suppliers.
Cognitive Conservation makes use of cutting-edge technology that intelligently helps smart communities and utilities predict energy savings through improved information and education. The CFO of Screaming Power, Greg Doucette, states that “Working closely with our research partners, Ryerson and SOSCIP, is a key advantage providing access to important Ontario resources that assists us in developing novel methodologies and IP in energy marketplace worldwide”. This HQP grant will provide training opportunities for a Ryerson Master of Computer Science student working with Screaming Power’s big data platform to gain practical experience using machine-learning models in the energy industry.
September 11, 2018
About Ryerson
Ryerson University is Canada’s leader in innovative, career-oriented education. Urban, culturally diverse and inclusive, the university is home to more than 45,300 students, including 2,600 Master’s and PhD students, 3,800 faculty and staff, and nearly 198,000 alumni worldwide. For more information, visit www.ryerson.ca.
About SOSCIP
Based in Ontario, SOSCIP is unique as Canada’s only R&D consortium using data science partnerships to drive innovation. Launched in 2012, SOSCIP is a ground-breaking collaboration between 15 of Ontario’s most research-intensive post-secondary institutions, IBM Canada, Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) and dozens of Canadian companies. SOSCIP fills a distinct gap in Canada’s advanced research computing network by directly solving industry R&D challenges by providing access to unique technologies, partnership-building capabilities and an extensive research support framework. For more information, visit www.soscip.org
About Screaming Power Inc.
Screaming Power is revolutionizing customer engagement by providing a mobile platform that connects the energy user, allowing for effective and secure two-way communications to educate, change behaviour and encourage sustainability. Our extensible Intellectual Property provides a low-cost, digital infrastructure for a self-sustaining Eco-System. Our Scream Utility & Scream Enterprise mobile solutions focus on reducing ‘cost-to-service’ for utilities while driving satisfaction and facilitating the delivery of innovation (e.g., connectivity to the IoTs).