Elif Gungormus Deliismail, studying for her Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University - Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey, developed an innovative project to show how a mini-modular plant, coupled with smart centralized energy management and low-carbon fuel sources, can transform energy performance across a rural academic campus. She selected her own Izmir Institute of Technology campus, consisting of 32 buildings with a population of 7,655, to pilot her modular energy solution. With the ability to simultaneously generate electricity, heat, water, and clean fuel through digitalization, this futuristic system delivers self-sustaining buildings to achieve sustainable campus life.

Using ContextCapture, she processed 689 drone-captured campus images into a 3D reality model. She used MicroStation to model the plant design while combining the 3D campus model and digital modular plant using LumenRT for animated visualization. Through digital modeling and analysis, Deliismail determined that her proposed plant design could achieve self-sustainable buildings by installing 60 modules that would fulfill campus energy demands for heating, electricity, and transportation fuel. Using Bentley applications not only helped design this innovative energy solution, but they also facilitated digital asset management, as well as tracking and locating of assets, which are critical to ensuring reliable operations of the 60 campus mini modules. At a unit cost of USD 28,015 per module, after taking biogas capital expenditures and natural gas sale costs into account, the payback period for all 60 modules would be less than seven years. The sustainable energy supply is expected to save the school USD 120,000 in one year.