Page 28 - European Energy Innovation - summer 2019 publication
P. 28
28 Summer 2019 European Energy Innovation
SMART BUILDINGS
Smart Buildings:
the silent champions of the
clean energy transition
By Frauke Thies (pictured), Executive Director, smartEn – the European association for smart
energy solutions
live and work in: from energy users appliances and devices, such as
with little relation to the energy grids heating/cooling, lighting, ventilation,
and market realities, Smart Buildings as well as possible dedicated storage
are becoming a cornerstone of a systems and on-site electricity
clean energy system. generation from renewable sources.
For example, if too much energy
Smart Buildings as a solution, can is available in the grid, the energy
help to balance the energy grid, management system self-activates
create comfort and savings for to charge electric vehicles or activate
consumers and prosumers, empower the heating system to store energy
them to participate in the market and for later use.
save energy while decarbonizing the
energy system. If energy is needed elsewhere,
smart buildings automatically feed
Today’s energy world is Smart Building Technology stored energy or energy from on-site
a dynamic, emergent Think of Smart Buildings as renewables like photovoltaics back
landscape, marked by conductors of an orchestra: they into the grid. Smart Buildings thus
decentralised players, and direct the roles of each instrument match the needs of the building’s
variable energy sources that raise and encourage all players to give their occupants with the needs of the rest
the challenge of efficiently matching best, while ensuring a harmonious of the electricity system.
demand and supply. This reality also symphony.
puts a new focus on the buildings we This optimisation is achieved by
Enabled by a smart energy reacting to price signals, or by offering
management system, Smart Buildings the Smart Building’s flexibility to an
decide how to best use energy by aggregator (to achieve larger scales
communicating with their various and increased reliability from pooling),
that can offer residual energy to other
As Smart Buildings markets. As EU markets open further
to flexibility, added revenue streams
for buildings will appear.
increasingly interact with Speedy transition to unleash Smart
the energy system they can take Building potential
up a significant role in As Smart Buildings increasingly
system flexibility. interact with the energy system
they can take up a significant role
in system flexibility. The good
news is that homes which use
digitally controlled lighting, heating,
ventilation, air conditioning, security
and home appliances are set to
increase from 8.5 million in 2016 to
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