WILSON: Innovation and digital twins at the Hospital del Mar
Hospital del Mar and PINEARQ have participated in the WILSON proposal, submitted for the call Innovative uses of lifecycle data for the management of buildings and buildings portfolio, within HORIZON, the largest research and innovation program in the European Union for the period 2021-2027.
What is WILSON about?
WILSON Europe Horizon Project is the product of a collaborative consortium led by the CIRCE Foundation together with 16 other partners from 10 countries, including the Technical University of Eindhoven and the University of Newcastle, two of Europe’s leading public institutions in digital building twins research.
The overall objective is to optimize interoperability between management tools and energy distribution systems by combining all data generated during the building life cycle (design, construction and operation).
The WILSON project introduces a new approach leveraging semantic data repositories, cognitive digital twins and decentralized data management to improve building’s management. This initiative includes 5 pilot sites, with setting new standards in energy efficient building management as the new goal.
The result of the call for proposals was published in January 2024, with a work program that will extend to 2027.
The future Hospital del Mar as an innovation example
WILSON includes Hospital del Mar as one of the pilots of the project. It is proposed to build a digital twin of buildings B and B1 based on BMS, BIM, indoor air quality sensors and other building life cycle data. This digital twin will allow the Hospital to manage more efficiently the energy consumption of the most intensively used HVAC systems (Operating Rooms, Radiology, ICU, Nuclear Medicine), aligning infrastructure management with the well-being of patients and staff.
Hospital buildings are energy-intensive facilities due to their constant operation and the evolution of medical technology. It is estimated that hospitals consume 5% of the world’s total energy and that their energy expenditure in the EU has increased by 30% over the last 5 years. A large part of this consumption goes to maintaining temperature and air cleanliness. Centralized HVAC systems account for more than 40% of hospital energy use and are the largest contributor to a hospital’s energy expenditure. In addition, HVAC systems are closely linked to the well-being of patients and staff, as they are determinants of indoor air quality (IAQ); therefore, the cost of energy consumption is not only measured in Kw/h, but also in the impact it has on the health of users.
The demonstration pilot led by Hospital del Mar and PINEARQ aims to integrate mature technological products for energy management, user activity monitoring and indoor environment quality.
Pinearq will contribute to this effort by providing our expertise in integrating data and BIM models with data from IoT networks and automated management software. WILSON proposes Hospital del Mar’s digital twin main task will be focus on energy monitoring and optimization, as well as techno-economic investment planning; other uses for the pilot include decentralized management of data from multiple sources, design and planning of future projects, and predictive maintenance.
Links: