Towards Smart and Connected Buildings and Cities: Intelligent Building Operations for Efficient, Resilient and Healthy Buildings

Over 50% of the world’s population currently lives in cities, and this number is expected to rise to 70% by 2050. The urban built environment is expected to triple in the next three decades. This built environment has significant impacts on sustainability and human well-being. In the United States, the buildings sector (commercial & residential) accounts for more than 40% of the primary energy consumption and about 75% of electricity consumption. Enhancing building efficiency represents one of the easiest, most immediate, and most cost-effective ways to reduce the nation’s energy consumption. Efficient and intelligent building operations can help improve the building energy efficiency, resilience, and occupant well-being. Recently, intelligent building operations have been investigated for the predictive control of full scale (or partial) heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems, building energy diagnostics, smart controls of the building envelope, building-to-grid integrations, etc. This talk will begin with an overview of the opportunities and current research challenges associated with intelligent building operations towards smart and connected buildings and cities, and then provide summary on a few specific research projects that target some of these challenges. Finally, the talk will end with highlights of opportunities for future energy efficient, resilient, and healthy buildings.

Speaker: Zheng O’Neill
Zheng O’Neill is J. Mike Walker ’66 Associate Professor at J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering in Texas A&M University at College Station, Texas.