Future Intelligent Buildings - Ist110

1 Josh Wentz Dr. Glantz IST 110. 201 3 August 2009 The Green Smart Home of the Future In the near future, people can expect to intuitively access and manage a real-time assessment of their home’s energy efficiency. This is an important topic because buildings are the top contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. According to a 2008 study by the Energy Information Administration, buildings produce 41 percent of dangerous greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change and consume 71 percent of electricity produced at U.S., all accounting for 1800 dollars per household and 201 billion total US dollars (EIA 1). An aspect of this problem stems from disconnected building systems which restrict the development of new intelligent designs. Paul Ehrlich of Engineered Systems recently said that this restriction “is rooted in the concept of converging building systems onto the IT system” (Ehrlich 1). Disconnected building systems and applications can certainly communicate basic information (connectivity), but they usually lack complete data exchange capabilities (integration). The soon to be well known technology, energy business intelligence, will benefit both the environment and consumers by making an efficient integrated building. Three advantages of this new technology is that it will monitor and highlight inefficient areas for concern, provide powerful analytics (processing data into knowledge), and offer a real-time intuitive way to see what is happening in a building. What is energy business intelligence? Energy business intelligence (or EBI) is a web portal that will monitor and highlight inefficient areas for concern of a building or group of buildings. Similar to that of Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail, it will provide online externally

2 controlled data warehouses. But the amount of data for one user in Gmail, about 8 gigabytes, will not compare to the several terabytes of data collected for one building in an EBI service. But large amounts of input data such as trend logs and alarms do not improve performance. Massive amounts of energy data must be turned into knowledge in order to be beneficial. When this happens, it will be possible for systems to be integrated and programmed to execute selflearning applications and optimize energy performance to achieve new levels of sustainability. How will it benefit the environment? Energy business intelligence will provide powerful analytical processing that can turn data into knowledge. The first tool of this type is Global Energy Management for Sustainability (GEMS) (HomePortal GEM 1). It will soon allow owners to manage campus sustainability in real time. For example, at University of New Mexico, this GEMS web portal publishes energy data and carbon footprint in real-time. If the user selects an indicator like “energy costs per square foot” or “carbon footprint,” campus buildings change color based on performance against predetermined metrics. Red means the building needs attention because it is consuming too much, and green means in the zone. Traditionally, converting terabytes of energy and building information such as this is a major challenge. But this tool will solve this decade long problem by utilizing the emerging concept where we are accessing and editing information online rather than on our desktop, hence cloud computing. It will take advantage of the fact that performance is not restricted by the home computer. All of the online analytical processing is performed on a supercomputer and the user’s web browser acts as a terminal. The hosting servers will provide the horse power of the complex calculations. Converting massive amounts of energy and building information from data into knowledge will be seamless. This effective way of pointing out opportunities for improvement will reduce electricity consumption and green gas emissions.

3 How will it benefit the consumer? This technology will provide a real-time intuitive way of to see what is happening in a building or on campus. The driving factor is making this new communication system user friendly. In May 2009 the Chairman of the US Department of Energy GridWise Architecture Council, Jack McGowan, predicted that “Energy business intelligence will be to buildings as the iPod was to music” (Gowan 1). Just as the iPod revolutionized the way people use and control music, EBI will create a revolutionary change in how we control and use buildings. Local and remote access for security monitoring devices and home automation controls will be available to the owner. Consider the iPhone and the catchy television commercials talking about “apps” applications. But instead of having an app that calculates the calories in your lunch, or finding your car with your iPhone, you will have an app that calculates the money spent on energy in your kitchen or an app that turns on your car through voice command. Once this tool exists, it can be the focal point for adding the kind of artificial intelligence that can make smart and soon self learning buildings ultimately making for an easier more convenient lifestyle. As stated, people can expect to intuitively access and manage a real-time assessment of their home’s energy efficiency in the near future. This new technology called energy business intelligence will monitor and highlight inefficient areas for concern, provide powerful analytics (processing data into knowledge), and offer a real-time intuitive way to see what is happening in the building. Developing an integrated today will create an intelligent tomorrow.

4 Works Cited Ehrlich, P. "THE DAWN OF THE ERA Of The Intelligent Building? " Engineered Systems 1 May 2009: Sciences Module, ProQuest. Web. 3 Aug. 2009. "EIA - Household Buildings Industries & Vehicles Energy Data Analysis & Survey Information." Energy Information Administration - EIA - Branch of the U.S. Department of Energy. 2008. Web. 31 July 2009. . Gowan, J.. "Green Intelligent Buildings: What Next? " Engineered Systems 1 May 2009: Sciences Module, ProQuest. Web. 31 July 2009. "HomePortal GEM." 2Wire. Web. 31 July 2009. .