Leveraging AI to Improve Your School’s Energy Efficiency

Increasingly, school districts across the U.S. are integrating the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) into classroom instruction. But AI has powerful uses for schools beyond smart whiteboards. For school leaders looking for new ways to manage already stressed budgets, AI offers many opportunities to reduce energy costs and make school buildings more energy efficient.

Building energy management systems

Districts across the nation spend upwards of $8 billion a year on energy costs, 30% of which goes to waste. However, an AI-powered building energy management system (BMS) can improve a building's overall energy efficiency and cut waste significantly. It uses smart sensors and devices to automate and optimize heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and security systems based on real-time conditions.

An AI-powered BMS can consider things like the weather forecast, energy costs and occupancy sensors to efficiently manage a school's smart HVAC system during and outside school hours. For example, a gymnasium requires more ventilation during periods in which it is fully occupied but considerably less when students are elsewhere in the building or have gone home for the day. An AI-powered BMS, which can manage energy use on a room-to-room basis, can automate air flow to the gym, making the school more energy efficient.

An AI-powered BMS can control smart lighting systems in a similar fashion, reducing the amount of energy wasted to illuminate unoccupied spaces.

Planning for the future

AI can gather and analyze historical data to help you predict future energy use. By analyzing peak demand by time and location, AI allows school leaders to make data-informed decisions around future budget needs and infrastructure investments.

Predictive maintenance

AI-driven tools can also analyze the mountains of equipment and environmental data generated by your school's smart building systems to identify maintenance issues before they occur. Because well-maintained equipment tends to be more energy efficient, this predictive approach to maintenance can reduce both costs and downtime.

AI vs. generative AI

The tools outlined above rely largely on traditional AI, which, as noted, analyzes data generated by things like smart sensors. This differs significantly from generative AI, the subset of AI that has received a lot of press recently. A generative AI tool has human-like conversations with users and learns from the data you provide.

The technology is evolving rapidly, but there are already several areas in which generative AI can help schools become more energy efficient. Among other things, generative AI tools can reduce energy consumption by processing and managing data more efficiently.

It can also optimize the integration of renewable energy sources. If your school has invested in solar panels or other renewable energy resources, AI can ensure they're used efficiently and to the benefit of the school's bottom line. For example, AI can prioritize using solar electricity during peak demand when utility energy costs are higher. Conversely, the AI can draw more power from the grid if weather conditions reduce solar generation. Either way, AI ensures your school is fully powered with the lowest-cost energy source.

Both AI and generative AI have significant potential for bolstering a school's energy efficiency, but districts should still proceed with caution. Generative AI is prone to hallucinations—a fancy way of saying it can make things up—and like with any new connected technology, you'll want to take steps to protect systems and safeguard data from cybersecurity threats.