Introduction
There is hardly a field that IoT technologies have not addressed. The potential of the Internet of Things is not limited to industries. It can also play a significant role in day-to-day activities. Implementing IoT in residential and commercial buildings will monitor overall energy utilization and regularize energy consumption.
Building an energy management system through IoT technologies will save you from exploiting energy resources. IoT-based energy management in commercial buildings will monitor the overall energy utilization and help you regularize energy consumption and save energy.
This article will explore the unique IoT-enabled ideas to build an energy management system for commercial buildings.
Energy Management in Commercial Buildings
Commercial buildings consume energy in multiple forms, like lightning, heating, cooling, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration. Be it workplaces, shopping complexes, or apartments, every commercial building might face the challenge of optimizing its energy management strategy.
What if a workplace with many electricity equipped-machineries is less focused on monitoring their power consumption rate?
If a factory didn’t plan on waste disposal and let it mix with water resources, won’t it turn into an environmental hazard?
Yes. Building energy management through IoT systems can positively impact the quality of your atmosphere, health, and economy.
Building Energy Management Solutions through IoT
There are many IoT ideas for building an energy management solution for commercial buildings. IoT is a technology that allows things to communicate with each other just like a human does. It can transmit any human-involved monitoring or analytical process into a machine-maintained smart process, ensuring correctness. They integrate sensors with machines to let the machine feel the senses like smell, lighting, temperature, and many more.
Now that many IoT solutions help in managing such energies. You can connect the devices and let them operate through sensors.
Popular IoT Ideas to Build Energy Management
Here is a curated list of IoT-based ideas that would support you in strengthening your energy management process.
Energy Audit
By closely monitoring your energy utilization range, you can analyze the maximum energy required, check for the points where resources go unused, and save them from getting wasted. Using IoT techniques, you can build a smart on/off system so that no resources will get wasted. If not, you can alert other processes to use the resource.
Smart Surveillance
IoT-based management systems will also save you from investing many human resources. Instead, you can install a smart surveillance system where the camera will sense the human temperature, click an image, and alert the security system.
Renewable Energy Management
Energy in certain forms is easy to renew and reuse for other purposes. Say, like, if you have a pool where the water will be changed at regular intervals. In this case, you can collect the outlet water in a tank. Once the tank is filled, the IoT system will purify them and route it to gardening purposes.
Sensors in Monitoring System
There are sensors to feel the smell, temperature, and light. These sensors will sense the activity. Then pass it through alarms, message notifications, or lights. Or you can design the sensor to switch off the system automatically.
Example
| Sensor | Functionality | Application |
| Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) | Senses the intensity and brightness of the light | Automatic lighting system |
| Passive Infrared Sensor | Identifies movement | Security System |
| Resistive Sensor | Measure the humidity level | Climate Monitoring |
| IC Sensor or Thermistor | Senses the temperature level | Smart HVAC and Weather Monitoring |
| MQ Sensor | Detects the gas present in the atmosphere | Gas leakage alerting system |
| GPS Receiver | Receives GPS signals from satellites. | Maps, Navigation System, and Asset Tracking |
| CCD Images Sensors | Captures and reads the images | Surveillance, and Object or Human Recognition. |
| Capacitive or Inductive Sensors | Feel the presence of an object or human in the nearest proximity. | Smart Doors and Automatic On/Off |
Real-Time Data Collection
You can also collect the real-time signals generated sometimes and analyze them. With this, you can derive an energy usage pattern and decide based on the analysis.
Benefits of IoT in Energy Management
Though energy saving is the ultimate goal of such IoT-based systems, here are a few common benefits a commercial building could experience.
- You can get your work done with little human intervention.
- Saving energy considerably by putting an end to wastage.
- Optimized energy consumption will also help in cost reduction.
- You can also ensure environmental sustainability.
Challenges in Building Energy Management Through IoT
Every single energy management application in commercial buildings is crucial in saving resources. But, when we involve technology, we must also think of the possible side effects. Here comes the same challenge which any technological application will face. Yes. Privacy concerns. You are ultimately sharing your private data when you every move of your surroundings or your occupancy. But, with all those security measures, your can protect your private data from cyber theft.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- What is an IoT energy management system?
When you equip your energy management strategy with the Internet of Things, the system is called IoT in energy management. IoT technologies allow the devices to communicate with each other and make smart decisions regard to energy management.
- Can IoT help in theft protection?
Using proximity sensors, you can detect human presence. Then the image recognition sensors will check the image with the existing database and alert you if it encounters an unrecognizable object or human.
- Can IoT-based energy management help in cost savings?
When you see that no energy is wasted unnecessarily, you save a considerable budget there. In this way, an IoT-based energy management system will help you save natural resources, time, human energy, and money.
Final Thoughts
Did all these popular IoT energy management applications excite you? This is not just all. With its basic characteristics of connected devices, you can think of other possible innovations to bring into your commercial buildings. Cities these days are promoting each commercial and residential building to be IoT-enabled so that they can ensure a digitalized smart city.
Meta Description
With IoT-applied energy management techniques, you can expect zero wastage of energy consumption in your buildings.