Data platform

At The Green Village, data can be used to measure and analyse the performance of the tested technologies in and around our buildings. These data can be collected by sensors and data loggers installed in the building and the street. They can for example provide information on energy consumption, air quality, water consumption of a building, but also on the weather or on the temperature and humidity of the soil on our terrain. These data provide additional information about the innovations at The Green Village to help improve the solution. Our data platform is a single location that enables us to easily store and share data.

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Data at The Green Village

These data can then be analysed to gain insight into the effectiveness of new technologies and methods being tested at our terrain. These insights are used to verify that the innovations tested at The Green Village work as intended and to improve technologies currently used in buildings, for example with the use of smart control.

At The Green Village, there are many projects generating data from various sources. To optimise the use of these data, we have partnered with SURF to develop a data platform that provides a single location for all these sources. The data platform makes the data easily shareable with entrepreneurs, researchers, and scientists.

Technical Background

This data platform was developed in collaboration with our partner SURF. Through continuous consultation on the implementation, they built a system that combines Apache Kafka, InfluxDB, and Grafana. The way in which the infrastructure is built, makes it reliable, suitable for a high diversity of research, fast (high throughput with low latencies) and highly scalable. This different components are useful for several reasons:

Real-time data insights: Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed streaming platform. It enables us to integrate and process data from various sources. Next to that, it allows entrepreneurs, researchers, and scientists to analyse and identify problems immediately and solve them before they become critical.
Time-series storage: InfluxDB is open-source software specialized in databases for time-series. The data that are logged by Kafka are eventually stored in this database, that is meant for long term storage and analysis. This database can provides a comprehensive understanding of how a building operates and can help innovators identify opportunities for improvement.
Visual representation of data: Grafana is an open-source platform for data analysis and visualization. It translates the raw data from InfluxDB to graphs and dashboards that are easy to understand. This enables the users to – without having knowledge of a more complex platform like InfluxDB – present data in a way that is easily understandable for stakeholders, making it easier to collaborate and make data-driven decisions.

All in all our data platform provides a powerful set of tools for collecting, storing, analysing, and presenting data. This can help entrepreneurs, researchers, and scientists to make better decisions, to solve problems, and to identify opportunities for improvement, ultimately leading to a sustainable and energy-efficient building environment.

Examples data

• Outside temperature
• Relative humidity
• Wind speed
• Wind direction
• Solar radiation
• Groundwater level
• (Natural) gas consumption for heat within homes
• Electricity consumption within a home, the Office Lab and various heat pumps

Dashboard data

Overview data streams

Case: Energy Management System (EMS)

Our energy system will undergo a radical change in the coming decades as we are in the midst of an energy transition. One of the major challenges of sustainable energy sources is that they cannot produce energy on demand and that matching supply and demand is difficult.

While energy is currently generated largely in a controllable central location, such as a coal-fired power plant, in the future we will have millions of local generators that cannot be switched on when we need it. Data will play a very important role in this energy system of the future. Without insight into energy consumption or current weather conditions, nothing can be predicted or intelligently controlled. Knowledge is power!

Collecting data in a central location has many advantages. For example, making household energy consumption visible, to investigate which devices are energy hogs or to gain insight into the amount of energy generated in a year. A data platform is also very valuable for research. It can help validate whether a new innovation actually had the intended effect. To better link energy generation and consumption, an energy management system (EMS) is used. Data is essential for optimal EMS performance.