RISING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF BUILDINGS ENHANCED BY "SMART" CONTROLS OF THE IN-DOOR ENVIRONMENT.

Buildings consume a significant amount of energy today and are expected to consume even more in the future. This consumption necessitates the use of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, both of which have significant environmental impacts. While renewable energy sources remain promising, the most of the energy supply will still use conventional fuels in the near term. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency in buildings is critical, and one of the central visions of “smart buildings” is to reduce their energy use while maintaining the same level of service and comfort. However, to make the buildings meaningfully “smart”, their envelopes must first be made compliant with the current energy efficiency standards. In this paper, we first examine how the public awareness of energy efficiency was risen in Serbia through different demonstration projects, funded by the state budget and through implementation of the energy efficiency measures in public buildings, funded by municipal funds and soft loans from the banks. Then, we describe how the energy efficiency in buildings might further be increased by the use of new technologies and smart networks for control of the energy consumption. We finally, argue that these controls should take into account the personal variables (activity, clothing) along with environmental variables (air temperature, velocity, and humidity) for an optimum thermal comfort to be achieved in public and residential buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]