Energy Cloud: Services for Smart Buildings

Abstract

Energy consumption in buildings is responsible for a significant portion of the total energy use and carbon emissions in large cities. One of the main approaches to reduce energy consumption and its environmental impact is to convert buildings into smart buildings using computer, software, sensor, and network technologies. Using smart building energy management systems provides intelligent procedures to control buildings’ equipment such as HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning) systems, home and office appliances, and lighting systems to reduce energy consumption while maintaining the required quality of living in all of the building’s spaces. This chapter discusses and reviews utilizing cloud computing to provide energy-related services to enhance the operations of smart buildings’ energy management systems. Cloud computing can provide many advantages for smart buildings’ energy management systems such as providing the required software models that implement different control and monitoring algorithms and providing optimization methods for more efficient energy consumption in smart buildings. This chapter will also discuss the benefits and issues of utilizing cloud computing services for enhancing energy consumption in smart buildings.