In recent years there has been significant progress in both home and work-based technologies, and in those designed specifically to assist energy management in all types of buildings. These advances can be classified into four major trends:
1. Intelligent and wireless systems. Advances in the IT industry over the past 10-15 years are finally coming to energy efficiency solutions for buildings and equipment. Network and communications technologies are helping to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and enable behavioral change. Or in some cases, such as smarter automation systems, taking the place of occupant behavior changes.
The simplest example is lighting devices with integrated occupancy and / or daylight sensors. More advanced examples are lighting ballasts that can be connected and communicated with each other and with a central control system over a wireless mesh network. This type of system provides true plug-and-play capabilities, where luminaires can simply be installed or relocated and will determine for themselves where they are and how they should work relative to that location.
As end-use equipment, such as chillers or lighting, becomes more efficient, these automated and adaptive control systems will be the key to further reducing energy use. These developments are transforming everything from building controls to the power grid itself, and soon even the appliances will have similar capabilities.
2. Buildings zero zero energy. The move is now beyond simply reducing energy use in buildings to have buildings that produce power and contribute back to the grid. Renewable energy sources and on-site generation will contribute to a more distributed energy model, where individual buildings and sites are more active participants in the energy system. The development of energy storage capacities will allow this type of interaction so that individual customers can decide when to buy from the grid, when to store energy and when to supply it back to the grid based not only on the load but also on the price. The availability of renewable sources or even the carbon content of network energy.
As building codes continue to push performance ever higher, and the use of energy getting lower, net zero becomes more and more possible. Smaller loads can help reduce the cost of moving to renewable, on-site generation, making the net zero option much more feasible.
3. Integration at larger scales. When the talk used to be about the design of integrated buildings, we now talk about integration into the neighborhood (or even larger) scale. Examining holistic or systems approaches to energy supply and demand at large scales allows opportunities to link energy sources and energy loads across proprietary lines. This includes opportunities for district energy systems such as the sewer heat recovery plant in the Vancouver Olympic Village development, or simply the residual heat capture of an adjacent building such as the Interactive Research Center on Sustainability CIRS) s Point Gray campus.
4. The latest trend is not about technology at all. These are people. A lot of actions and "hope" is put into the new technologies. While the development of new and innovative technologies is certainly contributing to advances in energy efficiency and conservation, many technologies have been "emerging" for years, if not decades.
The challenge is to overcome the ingrained attitudes of designers, contractors, building inspectors, code officers, owners and users. This covers everything from changing individual behavior to changing the way decisions are made (at all levels) and changing energy in general. So really, this trend is about creating a culture of conservation.
Energy efficiency must be rooted in every project from start to finish. Only in this way will the use of energy be truly transformed into the construction industry and will allow the development of policies and practices that allow the true trends of "technology" discussed above to flourish and gain acceptance and application.