Smart Spaces & Energy Management

Energy management is growing in importance to businesses worldwide. It is a core component of most corporate initiatives around sustainability or specifically more ESG, which stands for?Environmental, Social, and Governance.?Companies are examining their business practices and energy usage profiles and identifying ways through which they can reduce their energy usage, reduce their energy spending, transition to renewable and sustainable energy sources, and store and generate energy to further resilience and protect against natural disasters.

According to Reuters, 40% of energy use is from buildings, and most are heated by fossil fuels. New initiatives from European Union? countries are focused on renovating buildings that have the worst energy raging – a “G” energy performance certificate. This proposal would include having residential buildings upgraded by 2030 and 2033 and nonresidential building by 2027 and 2030, depending on the rating grade.

Smart spaces with energy management solutions deploy sensors to detect temperature, humidity, and occupancy among other attributes of space. These solutions are integrated into HVAC control systems, allowing businesses to offer appropriate heating and cooling to occupied rooms. Ambient lighting sensors, combined with occupancy sensors, allow businesses to adjust the amount of generated light in occupied rooms to appropriate levels while reducing lighting costs.

Other components may include battery backups, on-site power generators, or on-site solar installations. Smart meters in buildings and homes continue to be deployed, with expectations that these devices will help consumers, utilities, and business owners to monitor energy usage in real-time. In addition, tracking of system and device energy usage is available to help further reduce energy consumption.

• In 2019, according to the US Energy Information Administration, there were over 11.5M commercial advanced smart metering infrastructure installations in the United States.
• In Europe, close to 225 million smart meters for electricity and 51 million for gas are expected to be in use by 2024. By 2024, 77% of European consumers will have a smart meter for electricity, and 44% will have one for gas, as per the European Commission.
• 36% of US small and medium businesses (SMBs) use one or more types of energy management devices, including smart thermostats and smart lighting.
• SMBs in the US report 10% savings in electricity costs with smart thermostat deployments.

Consumers continue to show growing interest in smart and clean energy initiatives, but many consumers in the United States are unaware of the available incentives or utility programs offered by energy providers on how to save energy. In addition, there is low awareness overall of energy products and solutions on the market. ?In other markets awareness is higher, particularly in Europe which has seen overall higher costs for energy.

• 45% of heads of US internet households would prefer to live in a community that is powered by solar energy; 35% are willing to pay more for clean energy.
• 60% of US households would be willing to pay for a power backup system, at tested rates.
• Only 24% of US households consider themselves “very familiar” with the incentive programs offered by their energy provider; only 19% were “very familiar” with energy monitoring and management products available.
• ?In Europe?many countries are focused on sustainability initiatives. For instance, in Finland, Motiva held Energy Saving Week to bring new awareness to energy consumption and specifically behavior changes that can impact usage.
• In Europe, the 2022 IEA report notes, “Tripling the current installation rate of smart thermostats - about one million homes per year - would reduce gas demand for heating homes by an extra 200 mcm a year at a total cost of EUR 1 billion. By turning down the thermostat for buildings’ heating by just 1°C would reduce gas demand by some 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year.”

This is an excerpt from Parks Associates white paper, Simplifying the IoT Edge: Smart Spaces Best Practices, published in cooperation with Technicolor. This research addresses the demand and growth of IoT edge solutions in smart buildings and smart spaces. It investigates top verticals and use cases such as smart apartments and MDUs, retail and warehousing, and hospitality and building management. It looks at common challenges and best practices in deploying solutions into these environments, examining new open solutions compatible with many different networking technologies.

Thank you for reading our research. We welcome all comments and questions.