<strong>Smart</strong> Solutions <strong>Smart</strong> Buildings Building the future Until recently, even the tallest office towers and hotel complexes basically just consisted of an assortment of building blocks. But today architects need to manage complexity as demand for intelligent buildings that require new integrated planning methods and smart computer solutions instead of old-fashioned drawing boards grows. Many of them are already taking IoT to a more macro scale with the “Building Internet of Things.” ■ by Rainer Claaßen* 68
Listening to modern-day developers discuss “smart” buildings sounds a lot like science fiction: Garages that guide drivers to free parking spaces, elevators that take you to the right floor without the need to press a button, meeting rooms that order the appropriate number and type of beverages attendees at a meeting will want long before the conference is convened: all this sounds pretty farfetched to laymen’s ears. But even more exciting, at least for the people who will have to pay for them, is the potential to raise efficiency by orders of magnitude, and in the process reduce building costs and overhead. According to the International Energy Agency, buildings account for more than 30 percent of worldwide energy consumption. That means that reductions will pay off disproportionately. German hi-tech giant Siemens, a major player in the merging market for smart buildings, claims that the recently opened Taipei Financial Center, which is equipped with IoT-Technology, operates at a third of the cost of a conventional building. Writing in Electronic Digest last September, notes Cabe Atwell, a Chicagobased writer and electrical engineer “On a grand scale, the Building Internet of Things will allow building engineers to better manage their properties.” Energy only where it’s needed “From monitoring the number of people in every room and temperatures of individual offices to controlling each light switch remotely, BIoT technology will help make life easier. There will be no more walking around a 100-story building to turn off light switches or tinkering with thermostats,” he continued. Some of the obvious applications could be more granular monitoring of occupied spaces to make sure comfortable temperatures are maintained when they are occupied and to lower temperatures when no one is in the room. However, Atwell also points out that BIoT will “revolutionize the way we collect data.” All that granular data will provide enormous amounts of quality information that can be analyzed for contributions to improved security, automation, and energy management. It could also contribute to region-wide management efforts, helping whole cities, for example, to become more energy efficient and helping police locate relevant surveillance information to solve crimes. How to achieve this? Buildings are like living organisms, Atwell says. And just as many animal species have developed very efficient lifestyles, managing systems of smart buildings can develop similar capabilities. Ideally, in a smart building energy will only be used when and where it is needed. Probably the most obvious example is the efficiency of heating systems: As modern systems are able to heat up a room in a very short time, an intelligent building can lower down the temperature in areas that are not used at a given time. As soon as movement-sensors detect that all workers have left an office in the evening, the temperature can be lowered – and the light can be turned off. Or conference rooms will only be heated a short time prior to the time a meeting is to take place. Use of air-conditioning can easily be optimized in a similar way: For example windows will either be dimmed or darkened by blinds, thus preventing the rooms from heating up – just like animals searching for shade in sunny weather. The efficiency of such systems can even be increased even more by adding data from recent weather forecasts. Connecting to the grid As renewable energy becomes more and more important, buildings themselves are being turned into energy generators. Modern Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) include components such as Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning (HVAC), solar and wind power generation, thermal storage, E-car chargers and smart meters, just to name a few. Increasingly, buildings feed energy into the grid instead of the other way I don’t believe the industry has put a lot of thought into what a ‘connected’ system really is and the ramifications it will have upon our industry. Time will tell. Phil Zito Author of the blog „Building Automation Monthly“ IoT on every floor The Taipei Financial Center, which uses <strong>Smart</strong> Building technology from Siemens, operates at a third of the cost of concentional buildings around. This calls for both flexibility and efficiency in managing loads. Experts believe that smart buildings will play a fundamental role in stabilizing the grid through smart consumption. Not only will they be able to produce energy but they will be also to store it, and to do this through energy consumption forecasts that they share with utilities and grid operators. Taking security to the next level But of course the consumption and the flow of energy isn’t enough. Modern buildings need to take security to a completely new level. Connected systems such as security cameras and face recognition software will give workers access to their offices without having to wave a card or type in a code, allowing them to enter the building at all hours of the day. These systems will also ensure that employees can only enter those areas of the building that they are authorized to be in. Fire safety is another major concern for smart building developers. People in the affected area will be warned, ventilation systems shut down, firewalls closed and higher pressure generated in areas near the fire. Without human intervention, smart buildings will take care that neither flames nor smoke can spread. far Intelligent buildings can make life a lot easier as long as they work the way their builders intended. But as the number of components that rely on each other grows, down-time © amadeustx / Shutterstock.com 69
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