Internet of Things, the Smart X enabler

The main aim of this article is giving a picture of the Internet of Things and its benefits, even related to the field of energy. This will be accomplished by describing models, technologies, barriers and examples of energy consumption containment based on smart grid and smart cities vertical applications. Smart grids offer huge potentialities for optimizing the energy consumption thanks to demand-management applications. Those kind of applications can potentially reduce the peak energy usage, usually associated to the most expensive components of the energy bill. For instance, Datacenter operators are extremely interested in that kind of applications because they see the opportunities of reduce drastically their Capital Expenditures (CAPEX). The Internet of Thing could bring enormous opportunities of improvement in the Smart City sector, mainly concerning the management of urban infrastructures such as: traffic flows, lighting, water systems, garbage collection and so on. This involves handling in real time a large amount of context-specific information as well as performing effective post processing of historical data. Public Lighting optimization, Neighborhood Services, traffic paths optimization are immediate examples of such applications in the Smart Cities field. By investing in Smart Cities projects, municipalities could improve both their financial statement and the quality of the life of their citizens. In order to address such huge opportunities the European Commission has planned a roadmap of 12 Billions of Euro until 2020. In this work we summarize at a glance the benefits that Internet of thing could bring in all these fields.