Harbour Solutions: IoT-Driven Digital Twin for Commercial Building Energy Efficiency

The Challenge

Commercial buildings generate vast amounts of operational data through their Building Management Systems — but that data typically sits siloed, unstructured, and unanalyzed. HVAC systems run on fixed schedules, anomalies go undetected for weeks, and energy optimization is reactive rather than proactive.

Harbour Solutions saw an opportunity to change this without requiring costly hardware upgrades. Their goal with the SEER project was to build an AI-driven platform that could extract meaning from data already being generated by deployed BMS systems — transforming passive telemetry into active operational intelligence.

Our Approach

Neural AI developed the core data and AI infrastructure behind SEER: a centralized cloud-based platform that transforms raw building telemetry into an actionable digital twin.

BMS integration without hardware changes

Using specialized software connectors, the platform extracts live and historical time-series data directly from existing, widely-deployed BMS platforms. Building operators gain the benefits of a digital twin without replacing or supplementing their current infrastructure.

Cloud Data Lake with automated data quality

Sensor streams are routed into a scalable cloud Data Lake featuring automated ingestion and robust cleansing — including deduplication, normalization, and validation — so that downstream AI models always work from clean, consistent data.

Semantic data modelling

Every telemetry point is enriched with contextual meaning: its physical location within the building, the zone it affects, and its structural relationships to other systems. This semantic layer is what transforms raw numbers into actionable operational intelligence.

AI-driven analytics

Advanced AI algorithms continuously analyse the enriched data stream to identify complex operational patterns, detect system anomalies before they escalate, and surface hidden inefficiencies — particularly in HVAC systems, where optimization opportunities are largest.

The platform targets a 15–30% reduction in energy consumption while maintaining occupant comfort, shifting building management from reactive troubleshooting to proactive optimization.

The SEER project was financed by Xjenza Malta, for and on behalf of the Foundation for Science and Technology and the Malta Digital Innovation Authority, through the R&I Thematic Programmes: Digital Technologies Programme.