BEE Group- Building Energy and Environment

Innovation Unit of CIMNE

About

Building Energy and Environment - BEE Group

Data driven intelligence

BEE Group leads innovative solutions for decarbonizing buildings and enhancing the climate resilience of cities through data-driven methodologies

Team, vision & mission

At BEE Group, we develop intelligent systems for the design and management of large building portfolios and urban districts, offering agile responses to:

• 🌡️ Climate emergency adaptation

• 🏙️ Decarbonization of buildings and cities

Mission

We make energy, climate, urban, and geographic data more useful and accessible to professionals and companies by:

• Reducing management and energy costs

• Increasing applicability and reliability

• Applying AI-powered analytics

• Developing personalized energy tools, user interfaces, and mobile applications

We bring energy data closer to building users in a friendly and intuitive way, selecting the most relevant information to enable personalized control of their experience.

High level professionals

 — including experienced engineers, data scientists, and emerging young talents — working in:

• 🧠 Expertise in building systems, energy analytics, AI, and data engineering

• 🌍 Commitment to climate action and environmental impact

• 💡 Innovation with open-source technologies and European collaboration

• 🤝 A team culture built on diversity, gender equality, and public service

An enthusiastic, forward-thinking team dedicated to developing digital solutions for a more sustainable and resilient future.

More than 25 professionals

Team

Awarded young researchers

Maite Sellart: 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝘆 𝗮 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 at the hashtag #MetroLivEnv 2025

Research lines

Smarter distributed energy resources and flexibility

• Enhance energy flexibility with predictive control and optimized storage in smart buildings and grids

Big data analytics for energy efficiency and operation in buildings

• Developing data-driven processing and models to improve the management and decarbonization of large building portfolios

Research lines

Energy transition and climate adaptation in cities & communities

• Geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) to build a more resilient future for cities with accelerated spatial problem-solving
  

Low-cost biodigester technology

• Development of low-cost digesters as a widespread biogas technology for various climates.
  

GitHub

Journals and congress publications

PhD thesis

Master and degree thesis

Academic research

 50 papers accepted in indexed international journals in the last 5 years

8 Phd theses in progress in the last 5 years

2 Phd theses defended in the last 5 years

 40 oral presentations in international congresses in the last 5 years

3 degree theses  in progress

5 Master theses defended in the last 5 years

3 Degree theses defended in the last 5 years

Research projects

BEE Group

Ongoing European Projects

BEE Group is involved in 11 EU research project (3 coord). It is also involved in 4 national funded research projects:  

• BlueBird (2024–2027) Flexibility market design and trading for smart buildings. Involves TSO/DSO coordination.

• CELINE (2024–2027) Digital ecosystem for energy communities, with AI assistant for collective actions.

• Climate‑Ready Barcelona (2023–2025) Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) for 61,000+ buildings and public-facing energy advice services.

• CLIMRES (2024–2027) Tools to assess and improve climate resilience of buildings and cities.

Vanguard Innovation

• EKATE+ (2024–2026) Cross-border renewable energy communities (Spain–France) with digital twins and electromobility.

• AGROPURITECH (2023–2026) Valorization of pig slurry via low-cost anaerobic digestion.

• COSMIC (2024–2027)  Large-scale pilots to demonstrate how big data and AI can optimize energy resources

• DEDALUS (2023–2026) Participatory demand response from households to districts using AI and social sciences.

BEE Group

Historic Projects

• BIGG (2020–2023) Big data platform for 4,000+ buildings: semantic harmonization, KPI generation, and analytics.
• EN-TRACK (2020–2023) Centralized tracking and benchmarking of energy efficiency across Europe.
• ePLANET (2021–2024) Local government networks for energy transition planning in Catalonia, Crete, and Czechia.

• EMPOWERING (2013–2016) big data to empower electricity clients
• EKATE (2019–2022) Shared photovoltaic self-consumption for cross-border areas using IoT and blockchain.
• SIM4BLOCKS (2016–2020) Real-time demand-side management in residential blocks.

BEE Group has participated in 80 research and innovation projects (75 % EU Funded)

BEE Group solutions: BEEMind tools

MindCity

MindOpera

Platform for resilient: buildings and cities 4.0

BEEMind

BEEMind is an AI powered environment that integrates three key pillars:

• Semantic web technologies to make data fully interoperable
• Big data architecture to manage large data volumes, and a set of intelligent tools to analyze and predict
• Optimization of urban environments for energy transition and climate resilience

AI-powered solutions to enhance climate resilience in buildings and urban environments

Platform for resilient: buildings and cities 4.0

BEEMind

• Integration of heterogeneous operational data (consumption and temperature, maintenance orders, energy efficiency measures, RES generation, cadastre, BIM, and SCADA data)

• Automatic harmonization of records from multiple sources (Modbus, Bacnet, DEXMA, etc.)

• Generation of operational indicators (self-consumption, PR, CO₂ avoided, etc.)

• Adaptable visualizations for each infrastructure

• AI modules focused on predictive maintenance, control, and energy optimization

Functionalitalities BEEMind Platform

One Platform two solutions

It is structured around two tools

• MindCIty
• MindOpera

MindCity

BEEMind tools : MindCity

 Ciutats 4.0 : high resilient cities in practice

This solution helps municipalities and organizations go digital and manage their data effectively on a local level.

It is a key tool for smart cities, energy planning, adapting to climate change, and making decisions about urban retrofitting

What does it do? It checks out KPIs for buildings and helps planning for energy transition and climate change adaptation:

• City microclimate model

• Rates how buildings are vulnerable to climate issues

• Forecasts energy retrofitting and adaptation strategies

• Sends heat wave communications—4 days ahead

• Supports designing urban green spaces and shelters

Description

Data integration Across Various Scales

3. Data at building level

2. Data at census code level

1. Data at postal code level

BEEMind tools : MindCity

BEEMind tools : MindCity

Use cases

• Optimizes resources and processes
  For large-scale analysis of geo referenced urban data

• Improves coordination
  Between municipal technical departments and citizen interaction

• High scalability
  For any city in Spain

• Climate vulnerability map
  Detect vulnerable areas based on large number of KPIs

• Support buildings energy retrofitting
  Identify and prioritize buildings with the greatest needs

• Actions to adapt to heat waves
  Optimizing climate shelters, better climate communications and greening

Impacts

Cities 4.0: Environmentally Smart

Data sources

MindCity: Data ingestion

Massive data integration

MindOpera

BEEMind : MindOpera

Edificis 4.0 : Operativa global d'edificis 4.0

An essential tool for entities managing multiple buildings: standard data orchestration, predictive maintenance, energy efficiency...

Description

Mind Opera is a modular solution designed for managers of public and private buildings with multiple data sources and operating systems:

harmonizes

Integrate

analyzes

Applying AI models to optimize operations and anticipate incidents.

energy efficiency, maintenance, and generation data in real time

Monitoring and predictive control

Energy optimization

Operació 4.0 d'edificis

• Modular cloud architecture

• Automatic aggregation and validation

• Multi-building supervision

• Anomaly detection

• Predictive maintenance

• Comprehensive equipment monitoring

• Semantic standardization

• Real-time intelligence

BEEMind : MindOpera

Cities 4.0: Environmentally Smart

Use cases

1. Centralized management of technical systems

   • Automatic generation of KPIs and operational alerts

   • Continuous monitoring of HVAC, lighting, DHW, and ventilation systems

   • Monitoring of compliance with thresholds of the different records

2. Early detection of anomalies in technical systems

   • Identification of inconsistencies in electricity generation/export or device behavior

   • Real-time performance analysis with interpolation and timestamp control

Efficient operation through reduced downtime and failure anticipation

Value

Improves service continuity and prevents penalties due to malfunctioning

Managment costs

Connection and quick action for maintenance service

MindOpera

BEEMind tools : MindOpera

3. Monitoring in multi-building or multi-company scenarios

4. Capacity for progressive data growth and aggregated monitoring

   • Performance tracing and calculation of KPIs such as PR, CO₂ avoided.
      

5. Monitoring and control of contracts or public tenders

• New control aspects of maintenance tenders: presence, energy efficiency, system availability...
• ​Monitoring of indicators created for contract management

Cities 4.0: Environmentally Smart

Use cases

Value

High scalability

• Integrate assets and sites in phases (plug-and-play with BMS/SCADA/IoT), without redoing integrations each time.

Capex Protection

• Avoids premature replacements of hardware/systems.
• Maximizes production and facilitates the justification of subsidies.

Case studies: iCAT and ICAEN

The Orchestrator of Infraestructures.cat

MindOpera: Data Orchestrator

Deploy a data orchestration infrastructure for public buildings with monitoring and remote-control systems, integrating structural, operational, and energy data.

Infraestructures.cat

Integrator of all equipment data under the direct management of Infraestructures.cat:

• Real-time data for optimal operation of hundreds of buildings

• Data provision to diferent internal and external actors. (Energy department, Maintenace department, clients, etc)

• Predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, consumption and generation forecasting

• Infraestructures.cat
• CIMNE-BEE Group

Actions

Goals

Main actors

Some KPI

Infraestructures.cat

MindOpera currently supports an ecosystem of over 1,000 equipments, including:

• 1,000 with structured maintenance data,

• Over 40,000 zones and 100,000 digital assets,

• More than 1 million work orders processed.

• It integrates data from over 250,000 IoT devices via protocols such as Modbus and BACnet, collecting real-time information from building control systems.

Dashboard administració

MindOpera: Data Orchestrator

MindOpera: Data Orchestrator

Home

Admin Dashboard

MindOpera: Data Orchestrator

The tool

Monitoring: Tracking KPIs

MindOpera: Data Orchestrator

Control and Maintenance

Monitoring: Tracking KPIs

MindOpera: Data Orchestrator

Control and Maintenance

Monitoring: Tracking KPIs

MindOpera: Data Orchestrator

Control and Maintenance

SIME-ICAEN

To integrate and visualize the energy data of all Generalitat facilities (10,000) and support energy savings through data intelligence:

• Comparison of energy indicators

• Evaluation of the energy performance of each facility

• Verification of savings from Energy Efficiency Measures

• Planning of energy efficiency actions

Institut Català d'Energia

The project

MindOpera: Energy Monitoring System – SIME

Seguiment i avaluació del Pla d’Estalvi Energètic dels edificis de la Generalitat de Catalunya.

Goals

Equipment supervision

Monitoring and control of supplies

Monitoring and

control of certificates and audits

Global energy supervision

Monitoring of energy efficiency measures

Monitoring of projects and actions

Data provision to external services

Data verification from different sources

Data provision to external services

Massive comparison: Energy benchmarking

Institut Català d'Energia

MindOpera: SIME

Centralized management

Energy Analytics

Energy Efficiency Measures

Institut Català d'Energia

MindOpera: SIME

Case studies: Aj.Barcelona

Climate Vulnerability Map of Barcelona

MindCity:  Climate-Ready BCN

Aj. Barcelona, ECOSERVEIS

Source: ICLEI Action Fund 2.0
Budget: €1M
Objective: Support citizens and public authorities in adapting to extreme climate events and reducing energy poverty
Implemented: From May 2023 to June 2025

Its goal is to provide precise and up-to-date information for decision-making in urban planning, public policy, climate management, and the protection of the most vulnerable inhabitants.

Aj. Barcelona, ECOSERVEIS

Vulnerability map of Barcelona

• Vulnerability estimation using AI and energy simulations

• Export of a large set of socio-economic, energy, cadastral, and climate indicators (KPIs)

MindCity:  Climate-Ready BCN

• The Climate Vulnerability Map of Barcelona is a geospatial analysis tool designed to identify the city’s most vulnerable buildings in the event of extreme heat-related events.
• It includes the assessment of all buildings (61,000) against heatwaves.

Main goal

Added value

CVI

How we estimate the Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI)

MindCity:  Vulnerability map of Barcelona

Climate vulnerability is typically framed within three key dimensions defined in the IPCC's Third Assessment Report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in 2001:

Exposure
Sensitivity
Adaptive capacity

Although most studies classify indicators using these three categories, our index introduces additional levels to provide a more nuanced analysis while remaining aligned with the traditional framework.

1. Local microclimate model

MindCity:  Modelling

Vulnerability map

2. Urban upgrade based on solar shadings

MindCity:  Modelling

Vulnerability map

3. Thermal demand models

Simulation of cooling and heating demand based on a Resistor-Capacitor (RC) Model calibrated according to each building’s archetype. The model uses an electrical circuit to simplistically mimic the building’s thermal dynamics.

Vulnerability map

MindCity:  Modelling

MindCity:  Climate Vulnerability Map Visualization

Export and data visualization

Vulnerability map

Vulnerability map

Index evolution by streets and buildings

Queries and forecasts

Vulnerability map

MindCity:  Climate Vulnerability Map Visualization

Queries and forecasts

Temperature forecast visualization by neighborhoods

Vulnerability map

MindCity:  Climate Vulnerability Map Visualization