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International Journal of Environment and Sustainability, 2016, 5(2): 18-29 19
smart environments. Smart management is a intelligent grids. However, while targeting the
key to maintaining people’s well-being under reduction of energy consumption in buildings,
the pressure of resource efficiency and environ- the satisfaction of occupants and preserving a
mental impact reductions. Advanced ICT can high level of indoor comfort should not be
provide opportunities for synergies between compromised.
different sectors comprised of citizens and
business-based services and solutions with a The focus of this paper is exploring the role of
high level of cooperation with the city adminis- energy in buildings in the smart city. This is
trations and agencies (Araksinen et al., 2015). done through presenting some aspects of five
recent research projects carried out by VTT on
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a combination of different national, EU, and international levels.
technologies and a collection of applications and These projects fall under a general topic of
business opportunities. Different viewpoints smart city concepts of intelligent buildings/
result in different ways of defining IoT. IoT can urban spaces and are aimed at net/positive
be seen as a set of enabling technologies that energy buildings and neighbourhoods, inte-
can be used by almost all areas of business and grating renewable and distributed energy
society and can effectively improve produc- technologies, and creating energy and ICT
tivity. The core enabling technologies are sens- business concepts.
ing, processing, communication, refining, and
managing information. The availability of 1. EERA Joint Programme on Smart Cities
accurate, detailed, reliable, diverse, and real-
time data that can be communicated through The European Energy Research Alliance (EERA)
IoT is at the core of the idea of the smart city. is a joint effort of leading European research
IoT constitutes a basis for any automatic or institutions focusing on accelerating the devel-
human decision-making process. Collecting this opment of new energy technologies towards a
information, analysing it, and acting on it is part low-carbon Europe. The focus is coordination of
of what IoT can do (VTT, 2013). national and European research activities and
bringing together resources in order to maxi-
On a global level, 40% of the primary energy mise synergy between pan-European energy
consumption is due to the use and operation of research expertise and infrastructures.
buildings. This means that buildings have the
potential to reduce the energy consumptions One of EERA’s Joint Programmes is the Joint
and management of emissions. With time, the Programme on Smart Cities http://www.eera-
specific heating/cooling energy demand in sc.eu/, which aims at developing new scientific
buildings is reduced due to more energy methods, concepts, and tools to support
efficient buildings. At the same time, city-level European cities in their transformation into
electricity use is increasing due to an increased smart cities. The key focus is enhanced energy
number of devices in buildings resulting from efficiency and large-scale integration of
the population growth, higher income of renewable energies, which are enabled through
citizens, and higher standards of life. The smart energy management at the city level. This
increased share of renewable energy can will be achieved by the extensive use of low-
effectively make an energy balance between carbon technologies and smart energy manage-
buildings and the grids. The optimal use of local ment based on innovative design and operation
and renewable energy sources is becoming of the entire urban energy system – from
more important. Therefore, it is to work on generation to distribution to consumption. A
finding the best methods for increasing the strong interdisciplinary and multi-technology
energy self-sufficiency of buildings by maxi- approach will be applied to capture interactions
mizing the energy matching between the on-site between different layers of the urban energy
generated energy and the buildings’ demand. systems: energy networks, buildings, energy
This includes using methods for energy technologies, and consumers. The tools that will
conservation and energy conversion and stor- be developed will provide a detailed insight
age and optimising the interaction with
Science Target Inc. www.sciencetarget.com
