Application of smart energy technologies in building sector — future prospects

Abstract

In buildings, various kinds of energies like cooling, heating, hot Water, lighting, electricity and gas are used on daily basis to provide safety and comfort to occupants. The national and global trend is to transform a conventional building to smart building by making use of smart technologies. The main objective of smart energy technology is to reduce the energy cost and environmental impact in building life cycle. All engineers, planners and designers are looking for applications of smart technologies in buildings to achieve the goal of lowest possible energy cost with zero environmental impact on building life cycle. Also the conventional cities are being transformed into smart cites which are financially and ecologically viable through the use of smart energy technologies and systems. Use of Renewable Energy is one of the pillars for attaining smart building and smart cities infrastructure. Technologies like smart metering, smart Lighting, smart grid and Energy Internet, Renewable, Distributed, Net metering, LED, Smart Building Energy Management Systems (SBEMS), Insulations, Day Lighting, Smart HVAC systems are the major technologies being used to achieve a smart Building architecture. Many countries have set up targets to reduce the carbon footprints by 10 to 30% by deploying smart and renewable energy technologies coupled with energy efficiency improvements and conservation actions. Future prospects for smart technologies are very bright and it is future technology revolution toward achieving sustainable energy goals. By deploying the smart energy technologies, conventional buildings can be transformed to Smart energy buildings leading to sustainable and green energy future.