Assessing potential of Blockchain with building digital twins for performance-based smart contracts

Thesis by Mahshid Motie, Master of Integrated Buildings Systems, ETH Zurich
A longer explanation of this video is available here:    • Assessing potential of blockchain with bui...  

Academic Supervision by Jens Hunhevicz and Prof. Daniel Hall, Chair of Innovative and Industrial Construction, ETH Zurich

Industry collaboration by Siemens AG

Keywords: BIM, IoT, Blockchain, Digital twin, Smart contract, thermal performance, performance-based contracting

Abstract: Buildings are responsible for a large percentage of energy use worldwide and, by 2035, it is estimated that their consumption will increase by 1% per year despite many green building certifications and regulations that promise to save energy. This performance gap may be rooted in the lack of collaboration often encountered among construction participants, where holistic solutions require cooperation at an early stage. Besides better management, recent innovations offer promising methods to overcome mistrust among stakeholders and reach higher overall efficiency in the construction industry and during the life cycle of a building. One solution is to leverage building information modelling, internet of things and blockchain.

BIM allows for digitization of the built environment, IoT sensors measure the physical world and feed that information into the digital models. When the digital and physical world are synchronized, these models are called digital twins. To enable trust and trans- parency for data, the mechanisms of blockchain can prevent cheating and provide data consistency and integrity. Smart contracts designed in blockchain environment allow for automation of business processes by encoding the rules.

This project aims to assess the integration of digital twins of buildings and blockchain to facilitate digital contracts in the construction industry. The specific form of contract chosen for prototyping is a thermal performance-based contract between building owners, construction companies, and facility managers. The smart contract assesses the quality and comfort of the indoor air and energy consumption rate for a winter scenario.
A proof of concept of the whole architecture and the smart contract is developed and tested on a case study provided by and built upon the building twin platform of Siemens AG. Through the application of thermal performance-based smart contracts on the case study, it is shown that the technical integration of blockchain with digital twins of buildings is feasible. The results of a short survey demonstrate that the proposed solution has the potential to influence the business model and the participants in the industry positively. Additionally, it is revealed that the predicted reductions in energy consumption, CO2 production, and total costs are reasonable.