Researchers at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed a system that can be Researchers developed a system that can be installed in a building to collect data on people’s energy usage. The aim is then to send this data directly to a smart electric grid that will allocate resources optimally. Source: iStockinstalled in a building to collect data on occupant’s energy usage. Data obtained from smartphones, sensors and other connected devices and appliances are transmitted to a smart grid to optimize resource allocation.

Smart building technologies are already available, from lights that switch on when someone enters a room to appliances that can be started remotely with a mobile device. As these interfaces all work separately to enhance the user's comfort or save energy in different ways, they can’t be tapped to produce precise, overarching insight into the electricity needs of an entire building or to optimize resource allocation. The interface developed by the researchers will be able to combine all this data and thus cover various energy needs.

The data collection program was designed to be as generic as possible, and the computer code used is open source. The distributed architecture of the real-time, brokerless and message-oriented middleware (MoM) system scales to any building construction regardless of the devices' performance and connectivity limitations.

Using a smart building simulator developed by the lab, doctoral student Olivier Van Cutsem is studying the benefits that smart buildings could bring through their energy strategies. “By looking at grid signals or available local output, we can adjust the load at certain times. An apartment could, for instance, be heated a few minutes earlier if the electricity is cheaper at that time or if that will curtail a peak in usage,” says Van Cutsem. “There is also some room for maneuver in terms of the comfort that users are willing to accept. We know that people tend to heat their apartments to between 22 and 26 degrees Celsius, so we could opt for the lower end of the scale when the grid is busy.”