Berlin-based company develops AI tool for greater planning security

There are also opportunities for medium-sized companies to play a pioneering role in this area. This is demonstrated by the Berlin-based company SICC Coatings GmbH. The manufacturer of speciality coatings has had an AI tool developed to make the effect of its products predictable for users.

Innovation through digitalisation

The energy transition in Germany is to be driven forward. Innovative approaches are needed to achieve the climate policy goals, particularly in existing and new buildings. With its coatings for roofs, façades and interiors, SICC Coatings offers a way to save energy and resources. Thanks to the special mode of action of the ClimateCoating products, heat is kept inside the building for longer in winter and in summer the coated roofs and façades reflect the sun's rays, which prevents the interior of the building from heating up too much. How significant the temperature difference will be - and therefore how much less cooling capacity may be required - can now be predicted thanks to the developed web tool Temperature Calculus. This offers building planners and the housing industry the opportunity to better calculate the costs and energy efficiency of buildings.

Collaboration leads to new ideas

Since 2020, the Berlin-based company has been working with the AD Ports Group, a logistics company committed to reducing its environmental footprint and looking for ways to improve the energy efficiency of its infrastructure. In one of the hottest places in the world, the initial aim was simply to test the performance promise of the coatings. To this end, several freight containers were coated with the ClimateCoating products ThermoProtect and ThermoActive, which reflect the sun's rays and prevent the inside of the container from becoming extremely hot. Finally, the trial was extended and extensive data was collected over a period of twelve months, on the basis of which the start-up M&M Network-Ing UG developed the web tool KI-Calculus on behalf of SICC Coatings.

Possibility for better planning

This AI model is used to predict energy savings through the use of the ClimateCoating products ThermoProtect and ThermoActive. "All currently available commercial software models and tools are designed to predict the benefits of insulation in cold and temperate climates," explains Waldemar Walczok, Managing Director of SICC Coatings, "but most other tools cannot accurately capture the impact of solar radiation on insulated buildings or buildings coated with our ClimateCoating products in hot climates." This gap is closed with KI-Calculus.

The web tool's user interface allows users to select numerous parameters in order to make predictions as accurate as possible. The algorithm draws on data from building physics. Location, building type, air-conditioned or non-air-conditioned are just as much a part of the adjustable options as the type of building component, existing insulation and dimensions of the property. Based on these values, the web tool immediately provides a result in the form of a graph showing the temperature development in the building for each month of the year - with and without coating. In addition, the average internal temperature of a building is listed and how this is reduced overall per year with the coating.

Further options in realisation

For building planners and renovators, KI-Calculus from SICC Coatings GmbH thus offers a way of determining the reduction in cooling load depending on the target temperature. This makes it easier to plan the energy concept of different building types under climatically divergent conditions.

The list of selectable cities is constantly being expanded. Calculations for interior coatings will also be possible in the future. The web tool is available to users free of charge on the SICC Coatings website at https://www.climatecoating.com/calculus/ and the results can be downloaded as a PDF.