The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEBA) at Sofia University has incorporated smart devices that monitor air quality and optimize the energy efficiency in a lecture hall, which is part of the university's strategy for decarbonisation and improving the conditions for students. The devices are donation by MClimate.
MClimate creates a complex solution, which allows measuring and monitoring of several parameters relevant to the quality of the indoor environment, including CO2 level, relative humidity and temperature. The system also incorporates dynamic control of systems for heating, automatically adapting to changes in air temperature. At the same time, it provides comfort for students with individual control.

This is one of the first steps of FEBA towards decarbonization after the adoption of the University’s SDG Strategy and Climate Plan, in line with EU directives on climate change and energy performance.
The products, manufactured by MClimate, monitor air quality and heating consumption 24/7 in real-time and allow the central heating system to be optimized. The installation of the units is part of the Faculty’s efforts to achieve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.
“Sofia University is committed to decarbonisation and reducing its carbon footprint, and FEBA has started many sustainable initiatives in the past years. At FEBA, we develop new MA programs, research, partnership with businesses and many public initiatives, which correspond to the SDGs and to the EU Green Deal. Also, together with innovative companies such as MClimate, we improve the work and study environment in our building” said FEBA’s Dean Assoc. Prof. Atanas Georgiev. 
The project team has installed smart devices that will measure CO2 levels, and smart radiator thermostats. Those thermostats provide the most accurate temperature reports to avoid unnecessary heating of empty rooms, which is the reason why they save up to 30% on heating bills. The CO2 sensors will help identify when ventilation would be needed, based on real-time data analysis. The devices are connected to an intelligent system with an easy-to-use user interface - an app within the university facility management system.

CO2 monitoring leads to savings because it allows an optimization of energy consumption.

You might be asking yourself, "How do CO2 levels and energy consumption relate?" The answer is that they are inversely related. CO2 monitoring allows you to see what’s the air quality in a space or room. If there is too much CO2 in the air, then that means there is not enough fresh air being circulated in the room. In order to improve the quality of the air, more fresh air needs to be circulated throughout the room. Circulating more fresh air into a space requires more energy which results in higher energy costs for owners of buildings. This upward trend can be avoided by using smart devices to detect how much CO2 there is currently in the room and regulating how much ventilation occurs based on this data. This will prevent over-ventilation from occurring and reduce wasted energy, saving money on bills and helping reduce carbon emissions.

MClimate is committed to supporting the university by helping them achieve energy savings. As part of Sofia University’s sustainability strategy, the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration was looking for a way to cut its energy costs, reduce its carbon footprint and become more sustainable. By installing those devices MClimate is helping the Faculty to get one step closer to their sustainability and ESG compliance goals.

Continuing on our mission to make the world a cleaner place, MClimate is participating in this year’s Clean Cities ClimAccelerator. Using our combined resources and experience, we can scale up solutions on a global level and set great examples on a city level in Europe. The ultimate goal of the Clean Cities ClimAccelerator is to create systemic change in cities for a more livable, resilient and clean environment that has a positive effect on the quality of urban life and meet challenging net-zero targets.

The Clean Cities ClimAccelerator is a joint initiative of the Impact Hub Vienna and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), funded by EIT Climate-KIC. It is a public-private partnership aimed at accelerating the adoption of climate neutral solutions in the cities of Vienna and Madrid.

The accelerator program focuses on key challenges in urban environments, including community retrofitting, green spaces, mobility, renewable energy, and data and information systems.

In terms of information and data systems, collecting data is a powerful tool that cities can use to achieve their climate goals and improve their quality of life through smart urban planning, focusing on decarbonization, energy efficiency and air quality. IoT software and hardware can be an effective way to help cities make better decisions about retrofitting their existing older and inefficient building stock and planning maintenance by identifying areas in need of improvements based on the latest energy efficiency trends.

The challenge we are focused on is how to help municipalities collect and analyse data in a reliable and timely manner with the help of the Internet of Things (IoT) and optimize their real estate portfolio of buildings through information, analysis of consumption patterns and energy use controls in the cities. Our platform or integration with existing city platforms and building management systems can also be used to control buildings remotely removing any inefficiency in unoccupied public spaces and help reporting efforts monitoring carbon emissions, carbon footprint analysis and support urban decarbonization processes.

Until today the lack of low power and wide range technologies coupled with the need to control costs, to rapidly deploy and connect every sensor across a smart city, regardless of whether those sensors are underground, in buildings or in the public spaces in between, prevented many cities from taking advantage of what IoT solutions have to offer. Thanks to LPWAN networks and their extremely low power requirements, devices can be connected for months to 10+years years using simple AA batteries, enabling a range of solutions where charging a device or replacing a battery is simply impractical.

Today, IoT is a fundamental tool for city leaders to realize their climate goals and create a more liveable, sustainable built environment. The use of IoT software and hardware provides cities with a powerful way to make better decisions about building stock and retrofitting existing inefficient buildings. IoT enables cities to collect data on specific aspects of their built environments through sensors that can monitor energy-efficiency trends, air quality levels and other important factors.

Learn more about the Clean Cities ClimAccelerator on their website.

We are looking forward to be part of this challenge working with the jury including Zaragoza City of Knowledge Foundation, City Hall of Zaragoza, La Pinada / Zubilabs, Repsol, Vienna Business Agency, Urban Innovation Vienna, AWS and Distrito Castellana Norte, and we are dedicated to work alongside all the other participants to find quick but long-lasting solutions setting the path for other cities in Europe to follow.

At MClimate we make any building smart, reducing the carbon footprint of the building and increasing the comfort of the people inside. Our mission is to create high-end, beautiful technological products that support decarbonisation plans of companies and individuals, so that together we can achieve the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations.

This year we are excited to be a bronze sponsor of the LoRaWAN World Expo 2022 and we invite our partners to join us in Paris.

At the expo, you will have the chance to meet our expert team, see our solutions and products and discuss potential collaborations opportunities together as well as how LoRaWAN allows deployment of large-scale decarbonisation projects. We are looking forward to connecting with other industry members, sharing experience and fostering the success of the ecosystem together.

See you in Paris!

Lyubomir Yanchev, CEO of MClimate