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Challenge

Build a District Cooling Plant Sub-Meter Anomaly Detector

Analyze district cooling plant tenant sub-meter data to identify bypass valve leakage and faulty energy meters. Generate maintenance tickets to recover lost cooling tonnage billing revenue.

EngineeringHosted by Vera
Challenge brief

What you are building

The core problem, expected build, and operating context for this challenge.

Analyze district cooling plant tenant sub-meter data to identify bypass valve leakage and faulty energy meters. Generate maintenance tickets to recover lost cooling tonnage billing revenue.

Energy Services Retrofit Engineer

Ingest tenant cooling energy sub-meter telemetry and central plant chilled water flow rates.

Calculate expected energy consumption versus billed usage to identify usage discrepancies.

Classify anomalies as either meter calibration drift or physical bypass valve leakage.

Output a verified revenue recovery report and maintenance inspection ticket.

Financial and engineering dashboard displaying thermal storage sizing options, peak kW savings, and payback curves.

Use synthetic normalized app records representing tenant billing sub-meters and central plant flow logs. Starter examples below are synthetic. They are not downloaded records.

EnergyPlus Extracts expected flow and thermal load properties using EnergyPlus central plant loop configurations.

dspy, pandas, scikit-learn. DSPy optimizes the prompt pipelines to match cooling load profiles with optimal ice storage dispatch strategies. Local or hosted LLM with strong mathematical reasoning and JSON formatting capabilities.

Submit runnable source, pinned dependencies, setup commands, a working interface, example outputs, and a recorded end-to-end demo. Include tests and an action log.

Identifies discrepancies between totalized plant cooling output and aggregated tenant sub-meter billing.

Classifies faults between meter drift and physical bypass valve leakage based on load profiles.

Produces an itemized revenue loss report for facility management.

Outputs simplified synthetic JSON maintenance tickets without triggering live billing freezes.

```json [ { "input": { "tenant_id": "BLDG-12", "billed_ton_hours": 1200, "measured_flow_lps": 45, "delta_t_c": 1.5, "_schema_type": "simplified synthetic app record" }, "expected_output": { "anomaly_detected": true, "classification": "BYPASS_VALVE_LEAKAGE", "estimated_lost_revenue_usd": 450, "action": "DISPATCH_INSPECTION" } }, { "input": { "tenant_id": "BLDG-14", "billed_ton_hours": 3500, "measured_flow_lps": 40, "delta_t_c": 8.5, "_schema_type": "simplified synthetic app record" }, "expected_output": { "anomaly_detected": false, "classification": "NORMAL", "estimated_lost_revenue_usd": 0, "action": "NONE" } } ] ```

Provides advisory financial modeling; requires stamped professional mechanical engineering validation before final procurement. Use mock external writes. Require human review before any real deployment.

Rules

Participation guide

Provides advisory financial modeling; requires stamped professional mechanical engineering validation before final procurement. Use mock external writes and human review.

Delivery guide

How work is evaluated

Evaluation

Identifies discrepancies between totalized plant cooling output and aggregated tenant sub-meter billing. Classifies faults between meter drift and physical bypass valve leakage based on load profiles. Produces an itemized revenue loss report for facility management. Outputs simplified synthetic JSON maintenance tickets without triggering live billing freezes.

Submission format

Runnable source, pinned dependencies, setup commands, working interface, example outputs, recorded demo, tests, and action logs.

Datasets

Challenge datasets

Public datasets, plus the private datasets you have access to.

Evaluation rubric

How submissions are scored

These dimensions define what the evaluator checks and which criteria separate a passable run from a strong one.

Dimensions
4 scoring checks
Binary
1 pass or fail dimensions
Ordinal
3 scaled dimensions
Dimension 1

Complete workflow

Ingest tenant cooling energy sub-meter telemetry and central plant chilled water flow rates. Calculate expected energy consumption versus billed usage to identify usage discrepancies. Classify anomalies as either meter calibration drift or physical bypass valve leakage. Output a verified revenue recovery report and maintenance inspection ticket.

Score scale
012
Score 0

Missing or incorrect.

Score 1

Partly complete, with documented gaps.

Score 2

Complete, with reproducible evidence.

Dimension 2

Correctness and evidence

Identifies discrepancies between totalized plant cooling output and aggregated tenant sub-meter billing. Classifies faults between meter drift and physical bypass valve leakage based on load profiles. Produces an itemized revenue loss report for facility management. Outputs simplified synthetic JSON maintenance tickets without triggering live billing freezes.

Score scale
012
Score 0

Missing or incorrect.

Score 1

Partly complete, with documented gaps.

Score 2

Complete, with reproducible evidence.

Dimension 3

Review interface

Financial and engineering dashboard displaying thermal storage sizing options, peak kW savings, and payback curves.

Score scale
012
Score 0

Missing or incorrect.

Score 1

Partly complete, with documented gaps.

Score 2

Complete, with reproducible evidence.

Dimension 4

Safe execution

Provides advisory financial modeling; requires stamped professional mechanical engineering validation before final procurement.

Binary check

This dimension contributes its full weight only when the submission satisfies the requirement. Partial credit is not awarded.

Learning goals

What you should walk away with

  • Ingest tenant cooling energy sub-meter telemetry and central plant chilled water flow rates.

  • Calculate expected energy consumption versus billed usage to identify usage discrepancies.

  • Classify anomalies as either meter calibration drift or physical bypass valve leakage.

  • Output a verified revenue recovery report and maintenance inspection ticket.

Resources and assets

Reference links and supporting material

Dataset notes

Use synthetic normalized app records representing tenant billing sub-meters and central plant flow logs. Supplied starter examples are synthetic, not source extracts.

Challenge setup

Configuration summary for this challenge.

Challenge input

Input details are not configured.

DSPy

Prompt and LM program optimization framework.

Evaluated output

No output checks are configured.

Evaluation checks
  • Ingest tenant cooling energy sub-meter telemetry and central plant chilled water flow rates. Calculate expe...
  • Identifies discrepancies between totalized plant cooling output and aggregated tenant sub-meter billing. Cl...
  • Financial and engineering dashboard displaying thermal storage sizing options, peak kW savings, and payback...
Configured evaluation evidence
  • 2 public reference cases
Configured runtime
  • 3 configured tools

Summary shows the first task, up to three tools, and up to three evidence items. Open the technical recipe to view all configured items.

View technical recipe

Configured tools

Action Space
  • DSPy · Optional
Training Infra
  • DSPy · Optional
Orchestration
  • DSPy · Optional

Evaluation contract

  • Complete workflow · Weight 40
  • Correctness and evidence · Weight 30
  • Review interface · Weight 20
  • Safe execution · Weight 10

Reference cases

  • 2 public reference cases

Workflow tasks

No workflow tasks are configured.

Recipe freeze marker

No recipe freeze time is recorded.

Frequently Asked Questions about Build a District Cooling Plant Sub-Meter Anomaly Detector