User‐centric smart buildings for energy sustainable smart cities

Abstract

Over six billion people are expected to live in cities and surrounding regions by 2050. Consequently, in the near future, the autonomic and smart operation of cities may be a critical requirement to improve the economic, social, and environmental well‐being of citizens. Smart urban technologies represent an important contribution to the sustainable development of cities, making smart cities a reality. In this sense, the energy sustainability of cities has become a global concern, bringing with it a wide range of research and technological challenges that affect many aspects of people's lives. Because most of the human lifetime is spent indoors, buildings, which make up a city subsystem, require special attention. Indeed, buildings are the cornerstone in terms of power consumption and CO2 emissions on a global scale. In this paper, we analyze the role that buildings play in terms of their energy performance at city level and present an energy‐efficient management system integrated in a building automation platform based on an Internet of Things approach. Occupants play a crucial role in the system's operation to achieve energy efficient building performance, and any impact on self‐sustainable smart cities will be a consequence of efficient user‐centric smart building designs. Our proposal represents a user‐centric smart solution as a contribution to the energy sustainability of modern cities. The building management platform has been deployed in a real (smart) building, in which a set of tests were carried out to assess different concerns involved in the building's infrastructure management. The first stages of this experiment have already resulted in an energy saving in heating of about 20% at building level, which could translate into a reduction of 8% in the energy consumption of buildings at a European city level. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Data science for building energy management: A review

“…Various studies have used data science techniques to show that energy needs vary, depending on the activities of the building occupants [2,3]. Consequently, a more cost-effective management of the energy load based on user behavior could result in a high percentage of savings [30].…”

Future of Humanity: Energy and Knowledge Engineering

“…Smart Cities have intelligent transportation and smart grid standards for electrical and lighting management systems [8][9][10].…”

“…Smart Cities as an applied technology term often refers to smart grids, smart meters, and other infrastructure for distribution and metering of power and water supply as well as the waste management system. [8][9][10] Conti [17] stated that in a smart city, the widespread use of ICT technologies provides a virtual infrastructure for the control and coordination of physical-city services: transport, energy and lighting, waste management, entertainment, etc. The ICT infrastructure is able to learn the behaviors and needs of the citizens in order to adapt the services of the city to their actual needs and, at the same time, to reduce the wastage of resources and make the city sustainable; for example, adapting the public lighting to the safety requirements.…”

Modelling home electricity management for sustainability: The impact of response levels, technological deployment & occupancy

“…In case the personal monthly average is over a given threshold, the likelihood of positive response increases. The raise of awareness due to inter-comparison (θ inter−m ) is expressed as: (10) where r a is the raise of awareness [%], c s is the threshold from which the awareness increases [%]. In the model, c s is fixed to 1.2.…”

“…In this context, the subject of our study is the Home Energy Management System (HEMS), comprised of sensors, computing systems, and a communication network. Whilst smart buildings can tackle energy consumption and peak shifting [10], the issue of concern is the impact of demand-side management and the response of end-users [11]. Modelling and pilot tests have earlier focused mainly on the benefits of automation technologies in homes, whilst the energy This is the final manuscript author version.…”