PREFACE

The Intelligent Building is today considered as one which incorporates the best available concepts, materials, systems and technologies, integrating these to achieve or exceed the performance requirements of the buildings stakeholders. These stakeholders include the building’s owners, managers and users, as well as the local and global community.

More and more buildings have central communications systems and the Computer Integrated Building is slowly becoming a reality. In recent years the number of office workers has increased significantly in parallel with global urbanisation, whilst more and more people are working from home, which together with the recreational use of the INTERNET also means that many homes have a Web provider for professional use.

Failure to consider the impact of the intelligent operation of the buildings can result in poor performance and low occupant acceptance of the design concepts and SMART technologies in Intelligent Buildings. This HANDBOOK addresses the barriers to the effective use of IT for energy management in Intelligent Buildings in order to facilitate the understanding of the relevant design concepts and SMART technologies.

Some of the definitions regarding Intelligent Buildings are reviewed and refined, to permit more accurate analysis and understanding of the market for this sector. Within this definition, a methodology for evaluating Intelligent Building performance has been developed from an existing matrix methodology for evaluating IT effectiveness in energy management. The objective was to incorporate the knowledge of the barriers to effective implementation of SMART building technologies into the evaluation process, and to assist market actors in the design and operation of Intelligent Buildings.

In order to present methods for overcoming the barriers to effective application an investigation to identify and collate the behavioural, technological, economic and regulative barriers to the adoption of SMART building technologies has been carried out and presented.

The Intelligent Building evaluation tool has been applied to Case Studies which are presented in detail in this HANDBOOK.

The key to the Intelligent Building is adaptability. The building must be able to respond to political, economic, commercial and technological change, whilst meeting the demands for limited environmental impact and creating a comfortable environment for its occupants. The truly intelligent building must use technology to serve rather than dominate and to provide solutions rather than create a new set of problems. Despite the requirements for strategic and specific actions to accelerate market penetration, the Intelligent Building is today a feasible goal, represented by the large number of buildings proceeding towards fully integrated design.

The HANDBOOK has been prepared in the framework of the SAVE Programme: “SMART Accelerate – Acceleration of SMART Buildings technologies and market penetration”. It is the result of a collaborative work undertaken by TSI-TUC (GR), NKUA-IASA (GR), BRE(UK), ENEA (IT) and URL-LEPTAB(FR).

The Telecommunications Systems Institute -The Technical University of Crete is a higher educational establishment specializing in telecommunications and technological aspects of buildings and running higher educational courses. The Research Institute, founded by the Greek Ministry of Education has as main objectives to promote graduate education, research/development and dissemination in the broad areas of Telecommunications and Telecommunications Systems. The Institute is involved in the undergraduate studies, postgraduate studies and systems development in the field of advanced telecommunications.

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens- Institute of Accelerating Systems and Applications (GR) and in particular The Group of Building Environmental Studies is active on the field of solar energy, energy efficiency and energy conservation in buildings. The Group carries out research, specialized studies, application projects, education and dissemination on the above field as well as on topics related to renewable energy sources. is a higher educational establishment specializing in building environmental performance, educational and dissemination activities.

Building Research Establishment is the UK’s leading Centre for research into all aspects of buildings and construction and the prevention and control of fire. BRE has a wide range expertise including building energy management, energy performance of buildings and buildings controls, best practice and benchmarking.

ENEA is the Italian agency for the new technologies, energy and environment which operates nine major research centers, coordinated from its headquarters in Rome. In the energy sector, the main fields of activities are : renewable energy sources and efficient use of energy, nuclear fission energy and controlled thermonuclear fusion energy.

The University of La Rochelle has a significant experience in the field of energy management in buildings and environmental control of inhabited spaces. Leptab has a high expertise in the field of experimental and modeling approaches of indoor climate, indoor air quality, ventilation, air conditioning of buildings and other inhabited spaces like cars or urban microclimates

Special acknowledgment

The authors would like to express their appreciation and gratitude to Gordon Sutherland for reading an early version of the handbook, and beyond his cautious reviewing for very helpful comments, suggestions and discussions.

Athens
December 2004

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