Energy AI

La Trobe Energy AI Platform

Developed in collaboration with La Trobe academics and students from the Centre for Data Analytics and Cognition, the La Trobe Energy AI Platform (LEAP) uses advanced AI to analyse and predict energy consumption and building performance. This ‘living lab’ generates insights that help reduce energy use across our campuses, with LEAP producing over 20 published research papers.

In its pilot year, LEAP delivered over $250,000 in ongoing benefits through emissions reduction, cost savings, and improved efficiency.

LEAP features and benefits

• Deployed across all six La Trobe campuses, covering 300 hectares
• Centralises over 1 billion data points from over 6,000 data streams across more than 20 digital platforms
• Integrates electricity, water, and building usage data, predicting and benchmarking solar generation, emissions, consumption, and costs for each building
• A LEAP chatbot, integrated with Microsoft Teams, is in development to provide sustainability insights to the university community.

In 2021, La Trobe won TEFMA’s Clever Campus Innovation Award for the development and deployment of LEAP.

Read more about the LEAP research project.

Building Management System (BMS)

Using LEAP, we're continually exploring ways to optimise our Building Management System (BMS) to improve air-conditioning, electricity, and gas consumption.

AI Energy efficiency upgrades

We're using AI to improve energy efficiency in Sylvia Walton, TLC and LIMS1.

Set for completion by mid-2025, this project leverages data from the Building Management System (BMS) and metering systems to create a cloud-based digital twin of the buildings' chiller plants. This virtual model allows us to test system operations without affecting thermal comfort.

This process will optimise energy efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint using AI to analyse data and recommend system operation updates. LEAP will track changes, measure impact and verify results.