Innovation Guide 2023 - 9

net of Things] Australia Awards for
Research and the IoT for Good award.
Green IoT
As the northern hemisphere just survived
the hottest summer ever recorded,
with average temperatures 2.5 degrees
Celsius above historical highs,
the ability of cities to find solutions
to the effects of climate change is increasingly
important.
However, industry and academics
are not just looking at the potential
for urban green spaces to manage
outdoor temperatures. In another
project in Sydney, the University of
Technology Sydney (UTS) Sensor
Lab, and the Australian branch of
Japanese teletech company, NTT
Limited, also have teamed up to
develop a Green IoT solution for
green walls.
As with parks, green walls are often
seen as an attractive, although
expensive, feature for modern buildings.
However, as the Australian
government tightens up monitoring
of
construction-related
emissions
standards, the role of green walls
in actively mitigating both internal
thermal conditions and offices' embodied
and operational emissions is
Sydney's Olympic Park is the site of
SIMPaCT, which integrates a network
of environmental sensors with weather
station data and machine learning.
The sensor network on the green wall
at the University of Technology Sydney
Broadway campus monitors soil moisture
and nutrition.
of growing interest to developers.
As parks provided a space for
to " decompress " during
people
COVID-19, building owners are keen
to create internal green spaces to foster
a sense of relaxation and community
within their new commercial
buildings in a post-pandemic world.
At the UTS Broadway campus, the
two partners have set up a proof-ofconcept
green wall with 18 sensors
embedded that monitor a 30-foot-high
space. These sensors gather data on
soil moisture and nutrition based on
electrical conductivity of salt concentration
and alkaline levels. This data
can then be connected to machine
learning integrated with the Building
Management System to optimize the
management of the green wall to reduce
traditional maintenance and thermal
controls, such as air conditioning,
as well as their associated emissions.
The team's goal is also to take the
green wall data into reporting formats
for property managers, required
under the National Australian Built
Environment Rating System, that
measure actual building performance
against construction benchmarks.
The team at UTS Sensor Lab also
aims to enhance the parameters its
sensors can monitor to
include a
broader range of parameters, such
as potassium levels and carbon absorption
by green walls. They also
are working with advanced forms of
networking technologies that require
less power from their environmental
monitors and can extend the life of
embedded sensors by years.
The social and psychological benefits
of urban green spaces have been
well-understood for many years. However,
as a new generation of sensors
and networks develops and is integrated
into AI modeling, the ability to use
these green spaces to actively manage
microclimates, both inside cities and
buildings, is becoming a viable solution.
As the great management guru
Peter Drucker once said, " What gets
measured gets managed. " But as
SIMPaCT and the Green IoT projects
are showing, measurement and analysis
are what can enable management
- allowing parks and green walls to
become active assets in solving the climate
challenges that cities face.
Hopefully, these solutions come in
time for what promises to be a series
of long, hot summers!
Peter Knight is Managing Director at Real
Assets Advisory & Finance (peter.knight@
realassetsaf.com).
PARK S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G | 2 0 2 3 INNO V AT ION GUIDE | Parks & Recreation
9
PHOTO COURTESY OF SIMPACT
PHOTO COURTESY OF NTT LIMITED AND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
SYDNEY RADIO FREQUENCY AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
Innovation Guide 2023

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