IoT-Enabled Smart Buildings: A Sustainable Approach for Energy Management

Abstract

The increasing predisposition towards energy consumption and the environmental implications of convention building practices have spotty in the need for innovative and environmental friendly solutions in the building sector. As a reaction to this, the implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in building management systems has come up as a revolutionary success of optimizing energy usage, bringing down the operational costs and claiming environmental sustainability. IoT-enabled smart building utilizes state of art sensing technologies, real time data collection and the complex data analytics to monitor and control multiple energy consuming systems in residential, commercial and industrial buildings. These smart systems can make dynamic changes in heating, lighting, cooling, and other energy consumption activities real-time on the occupancy patterns, weather conditions and usage trends while connecting without hitches and automating optimally. In so doing, IoT integration not only comes up with efficient consumption of energy, but also contributes to cost saving and greatly reduces the footprint on the environment through buildings. However, in spite of these promising benefits, the mass deployment of IoT in the building management is subject to a number of challenges. These are, for example, problems with bidirectional communication between various IoT devices, threats regarding the data privacy and security and scalability of IoT solutions for large or more complex buildings. This paper explores the potential applications from IoT to energy management, examines the effectiveness of IoT on energy conservation, and discusses technical and operational barriers to full implementation of IoT with energy management. Additionally, it presents strategies to overcome these challenges to make a successful integration of IoT technologies. The study finds that with due implementation, IoT enabled smart building can have enormous potential to revolutionize energy management landscape, creating a more sustainable and energy-efficient built environment.