Conservation Of Energy By Home Domotics For Saving On Lighting And Thermal Energy Conservation

Home Automation Systems is not exactly new. During the 90's, I used to be Managing Director of a high tech electronics corporation and to impress our customers we decided to develop a PLC (programmable logic controller) based system, which switched the air conditioning actuators and lights off and on depending on presence of people in each room. In the night the very same system doubled as an advanced burglar alarm system, which would activate a siren, alert an alarm company, call a phone or any combination thereof. Automatic; the burglar alarm system just required a key switch at the entrance door of the building to deactivate and activate the burglar alarm; similar to any regular alarm installation. The question: "how much energy is conserved?" was only a secondary concern back then. That changed quickly thereafter...



It worked fine; but with one note: When a person would sit very quietly behind his desk; sometimes the light would be switched off. I can still remember my colleagues waving at the sensors. Somehow this was positive because it stimulates activity… However, what was really a revelation was how much energy is conserved by this (in our view) uncomplicated system; we recorded peak savings of 35%. How is this to explain? Both in a home and commercial environment, people often tend to forget switching off the lights when they leave their office. I remember that before installing this system, the air conditioning and lights in our meeting room and training room were regularly switched on during most of the day. And, when I would come back to the office in the evening, colleagues or cleaners had many times forgotten turning off the lights. Moreover, it was regularly too nice and cool in certain rooms.



To my surprise, now, 20 years later, I did not see a system, similar to the one as described above. Few seem to worry too much about how much energy is conserved... What is out there currently in the residential market is mainly gadget oriented; i.e. switching audio/video equipment on and off online or opening and closing curtains and alike devices. For commercial applications, costly building automation systems do exist. However, even these systems do not offer presence based functions . What could be the reasons for that?



First of all it could be the sensors; similar to what we experienced 20 years in the past. But, the technology that allows 100% detection is available these days. Think of automotive collision detection sensors.



Secondly, it may be the control software that is rather complex when done correctly. In essence, you would want a similar kind of automation like in the commercial systems, but for a price measured in hundreds of $'s to 1000's of dollars for advanced wireless systems or those with many functions and many input/outputs. But definitely not in 10,000's of dollars.



Wireless or wired



Wired is much more economical, but needs more installation labor. Especially in existing buildings, the cost difference can easily be compensated by the much lower labor.



As time goes by, wireless systems will likely become relatively more attractive as labor cost tends to rise and Domotics become cheaper as they are a mainstream product.



As contractors and architects do not have Domotics on their mind as a mainstream application for the home market, it will take quite some time and lots of missionary work by vendors. The bigger the potential low cost Domotics vendors are, the faster this would happen. Another option is that systems are being sold via Internet High Technology Marketing. This means that massive article marketing campaigns, on line seminars and email marketing campaigns will be are used to achieve market recognition in addition to traditional marketing.



In the GE ECOmagination Challenge (a technology competition), which runs until March 15, 2011), over 500 technologists, engineers, inventers and students contend for superior ideas in energy conservation. It is worth your while to take a look when energy conservation in the residential energy efficiency marketplace has your interest. Moreover, there are interesting green energy ideas at the General Electric ECOmagination Challenge(competition).





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James Post is a Dutch technologist, residing in Grenada. He is a top participant in the ECOmagination contest and requests your support by signing up, vote & ask questions. Questions will be answered. Look at his leading entries: Solar A/C & Residential Wind Energy. Please visit his High Technology Marketing site.