Report on Visiting Schneider Electric Innovation Hub Hong Kong

-       By Mr. Keith Wong / Ir. Ian LEE

To embrace the innovation and digital technology, HKIE Electrical Division organized a technical visit to Schneider Electric’s Innovation Hub on the 26 Aug 2022. This Innovation Hub is a large co-innovation platform with digital facilities from Schneider Electric to develop together with the customers tailored solutions to optimize energy efficiencies and other advanced IoT solutions to improve operation efficiency and reliability. The visit was divided into a few sections like a short video introducing Schneider Electric being one of the world most sustainable companies, followed by introducing the 6 sustainability goals that they are focusing. A tour was made to the equipment showroom where there were displayed products for general building, industrial automation as well as smart home and EV charging. 

The concepts of Net Zero Building and current market trend were introduced during the presentations, by utilizing the advanced IoT platform called “EcoStruxure” together with the Building Advisor software platform which could analyze the Big Data collected to plan for future optimized mode of operation of the building. The team also introduced the new features of BIM software and the market trend of more utilization, by advancing that from 3D to 4 and 5D (for cost and time), 6D (for sustainability) and eventually 7D (for FM).

The final section was about the smart way of carrying out field services maintenance.  This was achieved by using advanced platform for automatic analytics, predictive maintenance, good log keeping and works assignment and cooperation of customer FM team for developing a pragmatic solution for different sites. The resulting benefits could be huge, not just saving of energy and labor force, but more reliable systems and good customer services.  

Members were actively participating during the visit and many questions were asked which brings the visit to a more and better knowledge sharing section. On behalf of the EL Division, we would like to express our gratefulness to Schneider Electric (Hong Kong) Limited for arranging and supporting the visit.