Assessing the Impact of Smart Building Techniques: a Prospective Study for France

Saving energy is an essential lever in cutting our greenhouse gases emissions. Worldwide, the building sector is responsible for 40% of energy consumption. We focus on the French commercial sector in order to assess the gains that could be made by using smart building techniques over the long term (2030-2050). We use a long-term planning model based on a Markal/Times approach. We develop a specific way of modeling energy savings potential and energy conservation techniques. The commercial sectors energy consumption, sorted by energy carrier, sub-sector and end-use, is determined for the baseline year (2000). It is then extrapolated to 2050, using existing French prospective studies. Assumptions are made on the value of other external parameters, such as energy prices, technological evolution, etc. The model shows that smart building helps to reduce the commercial sectors overall consumption by 8%. This result remains stable when external parameters are modified: smart building solutions are robust. These solutions are complementary to passive (insulation) solutions, and they result in a reduction of the global cost of the energy system.