Controls top the US trends in green buildings

Interest in "home energy management" is likely to grow, if predictions from the US-based not-for-profit green building organization, Earth Advantage Institute, are anything to go by. Meanwhile researchers are developing a Star Trek-style "communicator" for office workers to control their local environment.

As part of its new year PR campaign, the Earth Advantage Institute has put together a top ten of upcoming trends in the sustainable building sector, and picks home energy management as the coming technology.

Other technologies and trends on the list include:

• Increasing urban density
• Green multi-family homes
• The application and testing of new materials (particularly phase change materials)
• Consumer-friendly home energy tracking devices
• Smart grid-compatible high-performance homes.

Meanwhile, for the non-domestic sector, controls technology is also in the news, with the recent announcement that a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has successfully tested the WristQue, a simple wristband that interacts with sensors around a building to optimize the indoor environment the wearer is experiencing.

The WristQue contains an assortment of sensors that detect temperature, humidity and light. The sensors use wireless technology to connect and interact with smart building sensors. Although the user can manually interact with the device to indicate whether they would like to be warmer or colder, the software behind the system is more sophisticated – monitoring occupancy patterns and using them to predict future requirements so that the building can adjust to these, in advance.

For a more detailed report on this product, see New Scientist 16 January 2012.

February 2012