FIEMSER: Energy Efficiency in Smart Residential Buildings

Buildings are responsible for up to 40% of energy use in most countries. However, there is a great potential to improve this figure, and ICT is one of the key tools to achieve it. This paper will present how the FIEMSER system will contribute to increase the energy efficiency in residential buildings through a double strategy: optimizing the operation of the building (energy demand, local generation and storage) and improving the behaviour of the building users. The FIEMSER system is an innovative Building Energy Management System (BEMS) for existing and new residential buildings that is been developed in the context of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Current BEMSs have several weaknesses: predefined energy control strategies, lack of integration of the local energy generation with the building energy consumption, lighting system is completely decoupled from the HVAC system, based on wired control networks, limited interoperability, … FIEMSER system will define dynamic and holistic control strategies that take into account the current and future building operating conditions (building users activities, weather conditions, energy prices,…) and integrate the different energy related subsystems: HVAC, lighting, local generation and energy storage. The FIEMSER system leverages on the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm with the definition of modular service interfaces. This paradigm provides the necessary flexibility to adapt the system to the different configurations, integrate existing control protocols and emerging wireless ones, and support different GUI (Graphical User Interface). This paper will address the following questions: opportunities to reduce energy demand and increase local generation in residential buildings; operation scenarios; functional requirements of the FIEMSER system; the OSGI-SOA architecture that supports it and the associated data model.