Smart buildings featured in two new BPIE reports

(eceee news, 8 Jun 2017) Two new BPIE reports explore the concept of smart buildings. The first report, “Smart buildings decoded”, sets out to explore a concept beyond the buzzword. The second report, “Opening the door to smart buildings”, explores how EU Directives can drie to transition towards more smart buildings.

In the report ”Smart buidlings decoded”, BPIE has explored the concept of smart buildings with one question in mind: What is a smart building? Measuring how smart a building is, depends on the capacity of its functions and the degree to which different components interact and complement each other. BPIE considered all these aspects and has come forward with a concrete definition of a smart building, placing energy efficiency at its heart.

For smart buildings to become a success story, multiple benefits must be recognised on an equal footing. Buildings have the potential to be at the forefront of providing flexibility for the energy system, including through energy production, control, storage and demand response, as well as providing a means to integrate electric vehicles. Just as importantly, smart buildings must enable a healthy and comfortable living and working environment for their occupants. But analysis has shown that more must be done in this area.

In the report “Opening the door to smart buildings” BPIE examines how market and legislative frameworks need to allow buildings to connect to and interact with the energy system. But this is not always the case across Europe. In fact, the legislative framework is one of the biggest barriers to the widespread penetration of smart buildings. And current policy discussions lack ambition to encourage buildings to play their role as micro energy-hubs.

This policy paper recommends how the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, the Energy Efficiency Directive, the Renewable Energy Directive and the Electricity Directive should be strengthened to ensure buildings can take up a leading role in the energy transition, at the same time as ensuring high building performance, dynamic operability between components of a building and its occupants and responsiveness of buildings to interact with the energy system around them.

The reports can be downloaded from BPIE’s web site

 

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