A framework for smart location-based automated energy controls in a green building testbed

Current building designs are not energy-efficient enough due to many reasons. One of them is the centralized control and fixed running policies (e.g. HVAC system) without considering the occupants´ actual usage and adjusting the energy consumption accordingly. In this paper, we discuss our multi-disciplinary project on a green building testbed on which we introduce mobile location service into the energy policy control by using the now popular GPS-embedded smart phones. Every occupant in the building who has a smart phone is able to monitor their usage and adjust their own energy policy in real-time. This changes the centralized control inside the building into a distributed control paradigm. It allows the occupants with different roles to participate in the energy consumption reduction efforts. Latest information technologies such as mobile smart device-based location service, distributed control, and cloud computing are used in this project. The major idea and experimental system is expected to be applied to not only green buildings but also vast number of the conventional buildings to reduce the energy consumption without sacrificing the human comfort and convenience.