Buildings Being Transformed into Smart Environments Through Smart Users
Date: September 30th 2020
Author: Alenka Lena Klopčič
Category: En.vision
Topic:
RES and EE
, New technologies
, Economy
, En.vision
Smart cities, smart infrastructure and smart buildings are part of the portfolio provided by Siemens today, recalled the CEO of Siemens in Slovenia and Croatia and the President of the Managers’ Association of Slovenia, Medeja Lončar, during the introduction to Tuesday’s Green Forum ‘Smart Buildings and Digitalisation in Construction’ organised by Siemens and the Center of Energy Efficient Solutions (CER). Lončar also noted that when planning the future, in the past people mainly spoke about the technological aspect, while today human beings are spoken of as individuals, their communities, and, consequently, a truly sustainable society and future. The multi-award-winning architect Brigita Gartner and the journalist and author of the book titled ‘Plan B’, Boštjan Videmšek, later discussed why action – including in the field of creating ‘smart buildings’ – is imperative, while experts at Siemens, Jon Lester and Igor Kulašić, explained the concrete steps required for such action.
Digitalisation (in construction) leads to significant energy savings (in buildings)

Lončar believes in the European Commission’s measures, which she mentioned in a recent video discussion for Energetika.NET, in which she said that digitalisation and automation, which will be additionally boosted by the EU post-COVID-19 recovery agenda, can make the Union the ‘wise man of the world’ (MORE).

Siemens has set a bold goal to become a carbon neutral company by 2030. The corporation generates 60% of electricity consumption in its locations worldwide from renewable energy sources (RES), and CO2 emissions have reduced by 41% since the Carbon Neutral Programme was introduced. Siemens intends to invest EUR 100 million in energy efficiency projects, resulting in savings of at least EUR 20 million. It plans to invest around EUR 45 million in distributed energy systems, expand the infrastructure of (currently 200) charging stations for electric vehicles, and utilise RES to achieve 75% of its own electricity consumption at the global corporate level.
It can be mentioned that on Monday, Siemens' operating company, Siemens Energy AG, began trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The share's opening price was quoted at EUR 22.01 which corresponds to a market capitalization of EUR 15,993,460,697.93.
Data provide the foundation for smart buildings and come from users
The way the role of buildings is intensively changing today was demonstrated later in the online event by the global head of marketing channels and smart infrastructure at Siemens, Jon Lester, who discussed the fact that buildings will no longer be mere immovable property but will constitute ‘smart environments’ for their users in Siemens’ video feature published in mid-March 2020.

As pointed out by Igor Kulašić, Head of Smart Infrastructure at Siemens Slovenia, in his response to a question asked by Energetika.NET in a recent interview on the evolution of buildings that will actively help meet the needs of various users, data will assume the most important place. “Big data, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics are already part of this field; the data is collected, processed, and converted into digital knowledge. To this end, companies are able to develop new business models and generate new sources of income. However, to make this happen, users that exchange their data for some type of added value are also needed,” explained Kulašić (MORE).

“Good architecture is well-thought-out architecture”
Kulašić's response to the question of whether we will simply ‘reset’ buildings as we do with modern information systems was that “their intelligence will be gradually built up and constantly upgraded – with additional sensors, namely data, and new technologies that will produce ‘smart’ actions, and by integrating them into the ever-expanding ecosystem”. He does not see a step towards smart buildings as a potential pressure to constantly upgrade automation systems with new versions or frequent ‘replacements of spare parts’ (MORE).

What happens if artificial intelligence mixes with ‘natural stupidity’

In the introduction to ‘Plan B’, Videmšek, a former war reporter, stated: “The climate crisis is a great, full-scale, wide-ranging war. A war of humanity against humanity. A war of humanity against the new generations. A war of humanity against animals. A war of humanity against entire ecosystems. A war of humanity against the planet that hosts us. A war of humanity against balance, (co-)existence, the future.”
“If artificial intelligence mixes with natural stupidity, we can quickly go in the wrong direction,” concluded Videmšek in the discussion on Tuesday. He also claims that we need to be extremely protective of our personal data, since its protection is our fundamental right.
Kulašić ended by emphasising that, in all this (the design of smart buildings and infrastructure), people are the main link, since “before we can focus on the technology, we need to find out what it can do for the people who use it and how it affects them” (MORE).
This article is available also in Slovene.
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