• • • Smart Buildings and I0T • • • HOW SMART BUILDINGS ARE PAVING
THE WAY TO CLEANER CITIES USING IOT When it comes to clean energy and reductions in global emissions, most eyes turn to the transport industry, with some cities promising combustion engine-free centres within the decade, says Matt Lundberg, technical lead, industrial IoT at Impulse Embedded
C
ities across the world, however, currently house half the population, with over four billion people living in urbanised areas, and projections showing that by 2050 there will be another 2.5bn added to that. Climate experts are quick to point out that it is not just how these people get around that needs to be addressed, it is how they live and work. The demand for cities to act in reducing emissions and energy usage is climbing, with mounting pressure being applied to business owners and architectural engineers to achieve sustainability and net-zero carbon footprint as urbanisation increases – and this pressure not only falls at the door of new buildings. Here we look at ways in which Smart Buildings are paving the way to cleaner cities by harnessing natural and renewable energy and making their IoT connected environmental control systems work smarter, not harder.
TEMPERATURE CONTROL Temperature control is by far the element of commer- cial buildings that consumes the most energy. As soon as moving parts are added to the equation, such as fans, energy usage begins to skyrocket. Add to that power-hungry refrigeration units and air conditioning quickly jumps to the top of the list of concerns for ener- gy-conscious architects and building planners. The fact that the by-product of an air conditioning unit is heat tells us all we need to know about the ener- gy-efficiency of these systems, but Smart Buildings are set to put some of these shortcomings to use. More on that later.
Automation is the first step in reducing the ener- gy-consumption of a Smart Building’s air conditioning system. Most of us have been in a hotel where the air conditioning unit in your room only works when a key card is present, which means the unit is not running when no one is in the room. Smart Buildings take this one step further: no longer can the more astute (or un- derhanded) clients simply put a business card into the slot to fool the system into keeping the A/C on 24 hours a day — occupancy sensors detect whether nobody is in the room and deactivate the air conditioning after a short period of time.
When it comes to Smart commercial and office buildings, temperature, occupancy, and humidity sen- sors constantly communicate with the air conditioning system to ensure rooms are not being over-condi- tioned. Meeting rooms are linked to electronic calen- dars, with Smart air conditioning systems calculating
the amount of time required to cool the room, based on the volume of air to be cooled and current tempera- ture, and then switching on at the precise time needed to achieve the desired temperature.
Heating through sunlight is both a blessing and a curse. During the warmer months sunlight can heat a room to undesirable levels, meaning air conditioning systems in non-Smart Buildings must be running to keep temperatures to a comfortable level. This battle is amplified by glass (the greenhouse effect in action) and with over 11,000 glass panels London’s Shard is particularly exposed to this issue.
To mitigate this effect, the Shard has triple-glazed windows with a special coat of sun-protection between the inner and outer panes. Secondly, the Shard has an intelligent blind control system which automatically closes and opens blinds to maintain an even tempera- ture throughout the building depending on the position and intensity of the sun.
LIGHTING
Smart Lighting has been with us for some time, as have more energy-efficient LEDs that are arguably the standard for modern lighting solutions. But Smart Buildings are looking further than simple motion sen- sors that govern the on/off status of one or more light- bulbs — when it comes to energy efficiency lighting control is becoming more nuanced.
For instance, in the scenario where the lights of a meeting room are on, the blinds are almost closed, and it is sunny outside, a Smart Building can auto- matically open the blinds and lower the IoT controlled lighting to achieve the perfect ambient lighting level, thus saving energy.
Advances in LED lighting technology can already achieve 50% energy savings over legacy technology, and with the advent of these motion and light sensors,
12 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • SEPTEMBER 2021
and the use of environmental factors to determine required usage, experts suggest the impact could be a further 60% reduction over the savings already provided by simply switching to LED technology. It is this use of existing and renewable energy, whether its heat or light, which is at the forefront of Smart Building technology.
RENEWABLE ENERGY Renewable energy is perhaps most widely understood concept when it comes to energy efficiency. Solar pan- els are standard fare for commercial and residential buildings, and wind turbines are now being installed on taller buildings to harvest that free, renewable en- ergy being so readily distributed at higher altitudes. Ad- vances in solar technology is allowing solar film to be applied to windows, and with glass making up almost 99% of the external surface of modern office buildings and skyscrapers this is an exciting innovation that is sure to take renewable energy to the next level. Batteries can be found in modern Smart Buildings, which store unused energy harvested by renewable energy systems after the energy needs of the building have been met. What is more, Smart Buildings with this kind of energy infrastructure can distribute this un- used energy back to the grid, essentially expanding the energy efficiency of the building to the city as a whole. Although not renewable energy in the strictest sense, the heat output from air conditioning systems, which is essentially a waste product, is being put to use by Smart Buildings.
By repurposing this energy to heating water and areas of the building not exposed to solar gain, i.e., basements, Smart Buildings are helping mitigate the massive amount of energy used by these air condi- tioning systems where natural alternatives are not available.
electricalengieneeringmagazine.co.uk
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