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Description

A smart gateway, as an essential part of the system, connects the smart home with the outside world. This allows the mobile control of devices in the house from remote places, often through smartphones and microcontrollers. External systems and services can be used for better energy usage regulation. Furthermore, the system can be connected to the smart grid as well as electric charging infrastructure to enable better energy efficiency and billing plans, for example, according to peak-time energy consumption or renewable energy content (European Commission, 2019).

Problems to be solved

Inefficiency Insecurity Lack of comfort Dependency of elderly people High energy costs

Energy inefficiency is a huge problem in residential buildings. In Europe, 26% of the total final energy consumption is consumed in private homes. Smart Home Systems can reduce energy losses and increase the overall security and comfort of occupants while specifically improving the independence of elderly people. There are several solutions in the context of Smart Home Systems to solve these problems (Eurostat, 2018).

Some marketable outcomes that Smart Home Systems provide are:

  1. Subscription-based services that can generate a constant stream of income
  2. Big target groups: It can be sold to hospitals and homes for elderly and disabled people, but also for those willing to increase their comfort in a smart home environment
  3. The gateways can anonymise and provide data to data platforms, to implement effective analytics and long-term improvement as well as product design. The data can be charged, and the analytic services and their results can also be seen as marketable outcomes.
Products offering these functions

Smart home and connected household appliances

An interoperable smart home system solution that connects all home-related IoT devices and household appliances made by Bosch or external partners.

Human-Centric Energy Management Application

Human-centric energy management applications exploits real-time energy analytics and relevant Key Performance Indicators to provide multi-modal reinforcements and valuable information to the end users.

Value Model

Cost-benefit assessment of the Solution.

As the chart shows, the majority of users perceive the main purpose of Smart Home Systems to be controlling energy, heating and appliances. Related to these purposes, the potential benefits are seen in saving energy, time, and money as well as improving comfort while reducing effort.

Main Purposes of smart home technologies (Wilson, Hargreaves, Hauxwell-Baldwin, 2017)

Potential benefits of smart home technologies (Wilson, Hargreaves, Hauxwell-Baldwin, 2017)

City Context

What supporting factors and characteristics of a city is this Solution fit for? What factors would ease implementation?

As of 2019, cities consume more than two-thirds of the global energy produced. Buildings account for 40% of this demand (IEA, 2020). The demand covers multiple energy-consuming activities including space and water heating, cooling, ventilation, cooking and use of appliances. To reach the ambitious goals set forward in the Paris Agreement, it is crucial to reduce the energy consumption in buildings.

Smart homes and energy management systems are key technologies for the implementation of sustainable technologies and the transition of buildings towards an eco-friendly state. The term “smart homes” describes buildings (mostly for residential purposes) that use digital technologies/Internet of Things to offer additional services such as the monitoring of systems, the control of appliances and the optimisation of the operation of appliances (e.g. maximising the usage of onsite-PV generation).  While smart homes describe the functionalities on the level of a single residential building, Energy Management Systems (EMS) conduct the operational management of larger energy systems that usually incorporate a multipurpose building or a multitude of buildings and appliances.

While installing Smart Home Systems, a city needs to ensure that the data from the residents is secured and that they feel comfortable with sharing their data. In several cities with smart home projects, residents have had concerns over data privacy.

(IEA, 2020)

Supporting Factors

A stable and reliable data connection is required to send and receive information. Furthermore, cloud management and belonging IT data centre infrastructure are necessary for interconnected smart homes. Additionally, to have an integrated system, it is required that all devices use the same language. In 2015, the European Union created a new standard called SAREF (Smart Appliances REFerence ontology), with the goal of homogenising the market and allowing communication among all devices.

(European Commission, 2015)

Government Initiatives

What efforts and policies are local/national public administrations undertaking to help further and support this Solution?

Regarding the use of smart meters, the European Union has established the goal of replacing “at least 80% of electricity meters with smart meters by 2020 wherever it is cost-effective to do so” (Directive 2009/72/EC). For 2020, only a penetration rate of 43% at the EU level was predicted to be reached.

The implementation of specific laws for gas and electricity smart meters is quite different between different regions. While three-quarters of Member States have adopted legal provisions for the roll-out of electricity smart meters, only a quarter of them have done so for the roll-out of gas smart meters.

(European Commission, 2019)

The European Commission has introduced the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) as a policy instrument aiming to facilitate the smart transformation of the building stock. For this transition, smart homes and building energy management systems play a major role, and their functionalities and services overlap with services associated with the SRI. The smart ready services related to SRI activities are grouped into ten domains as presented in the following figure:

The 10 domains associated with smart ready services of the smart readiness indicator (VITO, Waide Strategic Efficiency, ECOFYS, OFFIS, 2018)

Stakeholder Mapping

Which stakeholders need to be considered (and how) regarding the planning and implementation of this Solution?

Stakeholder in smart home systems (BABLE, 2021)

Market Potential

How big is the potential market for this Solution? Are there EU goals supporting the implementation? How has the market developed over time and more recently?

In the last few years, the Smart Home industry has grown very fast, with 44 million smart home households in Europe in 2020 compared to 27 million in 2017. Forecasts predict a rise in the number of smart home households to 97 million by 2025.

Number of Smart Homes per segment forecast in Europe from 2017 to 2025 in millions (Digital Market Outlook, 2020, Statista, 2021)

Implementation Facts

The European Commission assumes to have reached a penetration rate of 43% for smart meters at EU level in 2020. By 2030, 266 million electric smart meters are expected to be installed in the EU. That corresponds to a 92% penetration rate and a total aggregated investment of €46 billion. This is based on a weighted average cost per metering point of €172.

Key figures for different electricity smart meters deployment state of play scenarios (European Commission, 2019)

According to the European Commission, the weighted average cost per gas metering point is €171. While the number of gas smart meters installed in 2020 is estimated as 60 million (51% penetration rate), 51 million gas smart meters are expected for 2024. That represents a 44% penetration rate EU-wide and a total investment of almost €9 billion.

Key figures for different gas smart meters deployment state of play scenarios (European Commission, 2019)

Other elements of Smart Home Systems differ a lot in their costs depending on the producer and the status of implementation.

Legal Requirements

Relevant legal directives at the EU and national levels.
  • Regulation (EU) 2016/679: on the protection of natural persons concerning the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data (EUR-Lex, 2021).
  • Directive 2009/72/EC: concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity –promotion of intelligent metering and target of 80% coverage by 2020 (EUR-Lex, 2021).
  • Directive 2009/73/EC: concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas –promotion of intelligent metering (EUR-Lex, 2021).
  • Directive 2012/27/EU: on energy efficiency (EUR-Lex, 2021).
  • Directive (EU) 2016/1148: concerning measures for a high standard level of security of network and information systems across the Union (EUR-Lex, 2021).
  • Directive 2006/32/EC: on energy end-use efficiency and energy services (EUR-Lex, 2021).

The creation of this solution has been supported by EU funding

Use Cases

Explore real-life examples of implementations of this Solution.

Energy

Renovation of semi-attached homes of housing association using Woonconnect tool

The Use Case aims to involve tenants in the process of renovating and maintaining homes owned by the social housing association Woonbedrijf. The digital 3D-tool WoonConnect allows tenants to see the effects of their behaviour (i.e. showering, heating) and the expected results of the renovation.

Energy

ICT

Smart Home Systems for Tenants in Mülheim

The SmartHome app allows tenants to turn off all electrical appliances and lights at any time and from anywhere. This can be done easily at home or on the move. In combination with smart plugs (Smart Meter), tenants can keep track of the current energy consumption of any connected devices.

Energy

ICT

Smart control of individual rooms in existing buildings

With the aim of reducing energy consumption by 20% in the existing office buildings in Strijp-S, an innovative concept has been developed to optimise energy consumption while maintaining user comfort. The system allows interactive monitoring and control of HVAC system via mobile application.

Energy

Building

Smart Home Solution Pilot in Tartu

Through the SmartEnCity project, in addition to retrofitting package that will see Tartu’s pilot area buildings fully renovated, the apartments will be supplied with a smart home system that connects to the Cumulocity cloud platform and enables data exchange and monitoring.

Energy

Building

Active House smart home solution

The Active House smart home solution is an intelligent system with a state of the art graphical user interface. This energy tool raises awareness among tenants on energy consumption from areas including electricity, hot water and apartment heating and encourages them to reduce their consumption.

Energy

Building

ICT

Virtual energy advisor by Barcelona municipality

The Virtual Energy Advisor is being developed within the Barcelona Municipality project ‘Take charge of your energy’ with the aim to reduce household electricity consumption by encouraging behavioural changes amongst tenants.

Energy

ICT

Stochastic Model of Appliance Energy Consumption

An electricity demand model based on a stochastic approach has been developed by IREC using statistical data from Spain (Time Use Data Surveys). The aim is to influence consumer decisions to improve their appliances' energy labels.

Energy

Smart control of individual floors in existing buildings

Predictive control algorithm was used to independently control floors in a Strijp-S office building.

Energy

Renovation of semi-attached homes of privately owned houses using woonconnect tool

The digital tool WoonConnect is used for the renovation choice in this project, allowing the home owners to see their energy use linked to their day-to-day behaviour and improve their homes.

Energy

Renovation of semi-attached homes of privately owned apartments using woonconnect tool

To achieve energy consumption improvement in the whole area, the consortium also addressed other apartment owners present in the area Eckart Vaartbroek by using the WoonConnect tool for the renovation choice.

ICT

Building

Intelligent Building: Improved Customer Experience

Creating the ultimate customer experience for building tenants and building managers by connecting conversational AI with the building’s devices.

Energy

Building

L-Zero (smart socket)

Playfully achieve sustainable electricity consumption with the smart socket. It makes it possible to control and manage individual electricity consumption. A gamification approach is used to create incentives for sustainable behavior through challenges and rewards.

Energy

Building

Blockchain Prototype for Local Energy Transactions

The blockchain prototype developed by LSW, leverages blockchain technology to integrate small and micro energy generation units into the energy industry. The prototype operates within the Proof-of-Authority Fury Network, facilitating transparent and efficient energy management and billing.

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