subject: Conservation Of Energy By Home Domotics For Saving On Lighting And Thermal Energy Conservation [print this page] Conservation Of Energy By Home Domotics For Saving On Lighting And Thermal Energy Conservation
Home Automation Systems is not really new. In the 90's, I was CEO of a electronics high tech corporation and to impress our customers we decided to develop a programmable logic controller (PLC) based system, which turned the lights and air conditioning actuators off and on in function of people's presence in each room. In the night the very same system doubled as an advanced burglar alarm system, which would either activate a bell, alert an alarm service, call a phone and any combination thereof. Automatic; the burglar alarm system just needed a key switch at the entrance door of the building to activate and deactivate the burglar alarm; similar to any burglar alarm installation. The issue: "how much energy is conserved?" was only a secondary concern back then. That changed quickly thereafter...It worked fine; however with one note: When a person would sit quietly behind her desk; at times the lights would be switched off. I can still recall my colleagues waving at the sensors. Somehow this was positive as it stimulated activity However, what was actually a surprise was how much energy is conserved by this (in our view) uncomplicated system; we recorded peak savings of up to 35%. How can this be explained? In both a home and commercial environment, people regularly tend to not think about switching off the lights when they leave their office. I can remember that before installing this system, the air conditioning and lights in the meeting room and training room were often switched on during most of the day. And, when I would return to the office in the evening, colleagues or cleaners had many times forgotten switching off the lights. Moreover, it was regularly too nice and cool in some rooms. To my astonishment, now, almost 20 years afterward, I did not notice a system on the market, similar to the one described above. Few seem to worry too much about how much energy is conserved... What is out there currently in the home market is mainly gadget oriented; i.e. turning audio/video equipment on and off online or closing and opening curtains and similar devices. For office purposes, costly building automation systems do exist. But, these do not feature presence based functions . What would the reason for this? Firstly it may be the sensors; similar to what we experienced almost 20 years ago. But, the expertise that allows 100% detection is available these days. Think of car collision detection sensors. Secondly, it could be the control software, which is rather complicated if done correctly. Essentially, you want a similar level of automation as in the commercial systems, but for a price measured in 100's of $'s to 1000's of dollars for advanced wireless systems or those systems with many functions and many input/outputs. But definitely not in tens of thousands of dollars.Wired or wireless Wired is much more economical, but requires more labor. Especially in existing buildings, the price difference may be compensated by the much lower installation. As time passes by, wireless systems will become more attractive as labor cost tends to rise, while Home Automation Systems will become more economical as they become a high volume product. Since contractors and architects do not yet have Home Automation Systems on their mind as a mainstream application for the residential market, it will take quite some time and lots of missionary marketing work by manufacturers. The larger the potential low cost Domotics vendors are, the faster this could become reality. An alternative is that the systems are sold via Internet High Technology Marketing. This means massive article marketing campaigns, on line seminars and email marketing will be are used to realize market awareness.In the GE ECOmagination Challenge (a technology contest), which runs until March 15, 2011), more than 500 technologists, inventers, engineers and students contend for superior ideas in energy conservation. It is worth while to have a look in case energy conservation in the home energy efficiency marketplace has your interest. Above and beyond, there are many promising renewable energy ideas at the GE ECOmagination Challenge(contest).
