Smart Buildings beyond energy savings

Smart building technologies and building automation and control systems (BACS) can offer a wide range of additional benefits beyond energy savings. They can particularly improve building responsiveness to user needs. While these technologies have become popular for reducing energy consumption and improving building performance, the full extent of BACS's role in providing a wider range of benefits is still unclear.

This review, recently published in the scientific journal Buildings, aims to identify and gather the impacts of BACS in office buildings, with a special focus on improving indoor environmental quality by adapting building operations to changing conditions and ensuring real-time interaction with occupants. The review highlights the resulting benefits, including increased employee productivity, reduced sick leave occurrences, and lower absenteeism rates.

"This review article highlights how smart buildings can go beyond energy savings analysing the connections between Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS), the improved indoor environmental quality in offices, and the corresponding co-benefits such as increased productivity and reduced sick leave" explains Federico Garzia, first author of the article.

Click here to read the full text