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The Role of Energy in Buildings in Smart Cities

International Journal of Ala Hasan* and Miimu Airaksinen
Environment and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd., Tekniikantie 4A, Espoo, P.O. Box
Sustainability [IJES] 1000, FI-02044 VTT, Finland
ISSN 1927-9566
Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 18-29 Abstract. VTT, The Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd (www.vtt
(2016) research.com) is a multidisciplinary application-oriented research organization.
VTT carries out research and innovations that support the development of smart
*Correspondence: cities in many different ways. The focus of this paper is to explore the role of
ala.hasan@vtt.fi energy in buildings in the smart city. Because 40% of the primary energy
consumption is due to the use and operation of buildings, buildings offer the
greatest potential for the reduction of energy consumption and associated
emissions.

This paper presents some aspects of selected cases from recent research
projects carried out by VTT on different national, EU, and International levels,
including customer projects. These projects fall under the general topic of smart
city concepts of intelligent buildings/urban spaces and distributed energy
systems. This paper indicates the importance of energy efficiency, renewable
energy technologies, and energy management of buildings/districts, including
ICT utilization and business initiatives, in achieving a sustainable smart city.

Keywords. smart city, energy in buildings/districts, ICT, business concepts

Introduction Urbanization is a growing trend all around the
world, and more smart solutions are required to
VTT, The Technical Research Centre of Finland provide services to the people. However, this
Ltd., is a multidisciplinary application-oriented should be done in an efficient way with mini-
research organization. VTT carries out research mum impact on the environment. At the same
and produces innovations that support the time, societal development should be promoted,
development of smart cities in many different and people’s well-being should be maintained.
ways. VTT works from the early stages of a It is a global challenge to reduce environmental
concept and ecosystem development to the impacts, especially those due to the use of
practical implementations of the results. Our energy. At the same time, business should be
research and innovation activities cover all the globally competitive. The need to invest and
core technology areas relevant to the concept of improve energy efficiency, modernize the infra-
a smart city and its development. Our key structure, and create high-quality living
related technologies and application domains environments is huge. During this trans-
are: ICT, energy, transport, and the built formation phase, cities should make their
environment. VTT has three interactive re- development in a sustainable and smart way.
search programmes that focus on the smart city
area: Ingrid+ (Intelligent Energy Grids and Smart cities can be seen as systems with flows
Smart Cities) (VTT Ingrid programme, 2015), of energy, materials, services, people, and fi-
TransSmart (Smart Mobility Integrated with nancing. Technology is seen as an enabler of
Low Carbon Energy) (VTT TransSmart pro- good life through the identification, integration,
gramme, 2015), and pro-IoT (Productivity Leap and optimization of different energy, transport,
with Internet of Things) (VTT IoT programme, and data flows. City planning and city manage-
2015). ment are essential for creating sustainable