Buildings are one of the most prominent energy consumers in modern-day power grids. In particular, commercial buildings consume large amounts of energy for operating lighting systems, heating–ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC), and IT equipment including servers. High energy consumption at the buildings increases energy consumption cost and environment pollution. To deal with these issues, buildings can be converted to ‘smart buildings’. Through the concept of smart buildings, electric loads can be controlled in an adaptive manner. Unused equipment can be switched off so that the total energy consumption in the building can be reduced. The appliances that are installed inside a building will generate huge data in order to have real-time information inside the building. To fulfill these objectives, different methodologies exist. In this chapter, we focus on commercial buildings as smart buildings for efficient energy management.

Concept of Smart Building

Most commercial buildings are equipped with HVAC systems, IT equipment, servers, and plug-in equipment. These equipments can be integrated with different sensing and actuation technologies, so that they can be controlled dynamically depending on their requirements. Different useful techniques that are deployed in different buildings to make them smart buildings, are discussed here.