Digitization helps reduce resource consumption for the same production: better agricultural yields, more efficient machinery, optimal heating… It’s a greentech challenge for a more sustainable economy.
Panga offers a building management platform. This startup has the particularity of processing data locally, in line with the logic of Edge Computing. She agreed to answer our questions.
What environmental issues does Panga address ?
We are focused on two major environmental challenges: energy efficiency in buildings, and energy savings in our information systems.
- In France, the building sector is the biggest consumer of energy. It accounts for 40% of our energy bill, and is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Some studies show that after renovation, residents’ energy consumption habits change. Indeed, renovations lead to a reduction in charges, but also to an increase in consumption, which can cancel out the energy gains made. So, to better control energy costs, residents need to be informed and helped to better understand their consumption. Finally, building automation, and thermostat automation in particular, can reduce energy losses by 10 to 30%.
- Today, our buildings operate on a silo model, meaning that our data is transmitted over different networks (lighting, heating, ventilation, energy meters, video surveillance, intercom, etc.) which do not communicate with each other. The result is a multitude of redundant devices and complex data management. To overcome this, we need to pool our equipment (meters, BMS/CGT, intercom, tablet, etc.).
As citizens and residents of a building, we generate a great deal of data, which continues to grow exponentially with the development of Smart Buildings and Smart Cities.
All this data, which is generated and reused within the building, is processed and stored in external clouds, before returning to its point of origin. We must therefore seek to limit these transactions. It is estimated that data centers consume 1% of the world’s energy. Around 35% of this energy is invested in cooling systems, due to the heat generated by the concentration of computing servers.
Decentralizing these information systems would make it possible to have mechanical cooling systems that consume no energy. For example, the heat produced could be reused directly in homes in winter, reducing the energy bill for heating our buildings.
What solution does Panga offer?
Our solution aims to help residents consume better and less, by processing data locally. Thanks to a range of applications, we simplify access to data for building users and the city of tomorrow. These applications, chosen by the customer, are then made available on media supplied by us. These work like a smartphone operating system. Our solution is aimed at property developers and facility managers. We operate in the Smart Home, Smart Building and Smart City markets.
We design a modular, secure, multi-service network infrastructure for buildings, neighborhoods and cities, transforming them into service platforms and reducing communications infrastructure and costs. This system is called B-NOS (registered trademark and property of Panga SAS), and is built around IoT with an EDGE and Grid Computing approach, as well as the design of a BOS (Building Operating System).
What added value does Panga offer its customers?
Our solution enables better management of building-related data. It enables you to
- Be more responsive: Local processing makes it easier to analyze building energy consumption.
- Enhanced security: each entity has access only to its own data, with no access to those of other entities.
- Reduce communication costs and infrastructures: Limiting the movement of data not only reduces costs, but also enables infrastructures to communicate, as data is processed locally.
- Reduce carbon footprint: Reducing data processing in an external cloud reduces the distance over which data is transported, and therefore CO2 emissions. Optimizing data management also encourages more responsible energy consumption.
Have you identified any competitors? If so, what are your competitive advantages?
We have a few competitors in our market. However, we offer a more comprehensive solution. In fact, we’re able to adapt our solutions to suit different environments, developing them for both Smart Buildings and Smart Cities.
Our competitive edge is based on the Edge Computing concept and the design of a BOS (Building Operating System). In other words, we process data where it is produced. This technique enables us to avoid transmitting irrelevant data to a cloud.
In this way, we ensure greater fluidity and responsiveness in data processing. Thanks to this, we were able to register our B-NOS brand. What’s more, Panga is also positioned in the data market, so we have a wealth of knowledge in building data management.
What is currently preventing you from fully occupying your market?
Today, we lack visibility and awareness. However, we’re fortunate enough to be evolving at the same time as awareness of “better consumption”, which helps us a lot. Nonetheless, we’re looking for references to make our solution better known.
We are also in the process of developing our sales team. On the one hand, this will enable us to seize more opportunities to communicate about our solution. On the other hand, we’ll be able to reduce the time it takes to acquire customers. The lack of visibility is preventing us from industrializing our product and growing our business.
We also have the ambition to do well, so we’re working on numerous applications, which makes our development phase longer. What’s more, we’re involved in a number of projects that enable us to compensate for this lack of visibility. Currently, we’re taking part in projects such as TIGA (Territoire innovation grande ambition) with the La Rochelle conurbation for its “Territoire 0 carbone” project.