Renewable Energy Distribution and Management in Green Buildings

There are various environmental problems (i.e., “global warming,” air and water pollution), which need to be prevented. Construction of buildings plays a significant role in pollution. To reduce the harmful effects in constructing buildings, it is necessary to move on to sustainable architecture. In this chapter, different advantages and standards for green buildings will be discussed. Different organizations are contributing towards a green environment. There are even different sensors that are able to detect wastage of energy and can predict the requirement of energy. Machine learning, a hot topic these days, can also play its role in demand prediction. In this chapter, role of network communication and sensing to optimize the energy of green buildings and machine learning-based demand prediction to optimize the energy of green buildings are discussed. Further predicting energy harvesting from weather forecasts, return on investment of green buildings, and potential benefits of energy-efficient green buildings are also discussed.

Cloud-Based IoT Architecture in Green Buildings

The development and expansion of mankind in addition to the advancement of technology have a substantial impact on the environment. The construction, design, and operation of buildings account for a large consumption of natural resources. Due to the exploitation of natural resources on a large scale through these buildings, it has become necessary to have a better-designed building for the efficient use of resources. The concept of “green building” solves the aforementioned issues apart from promoting eco-friendly activities. IoT makes the idea of having buildings that are energy sufficient possible through networked sensors that not only help in managing the assets better but also reducing harmful impacts on human health and the environment. This chapter talks about the concept of the green building and the smart automation achieved through IoT as well as cloud architecture for the green building also referred to as green cloud. While it explains the basic cloud architecture in green building, it also proposes future challenges for the aforementioned subject.

Environmental Analysis of Construction Materials

There is a growing universal awareness of protecting the living and non-living environment and making enlightened decisions to achieve a sustainable development without destruction of the natural resources. In this point of view, selecting building materials according to their energy and health performances gains importance in sustainable design. 3Rs (reducing, reusing, recycling), and supplying a healthy, non-hazardous indoor air for building occupants are two important parameters of environmental life-cycle assessment for materials. Information on exposure to gases and vapors from synthetic materials made from petrochemicals, to heavy metals and pesticides, and to some combustion pollutants that cause acid rain should be determined by analyzing environmental product declarations or material specifications. After studying on building materials individually, they are analyzed in the form of tables for four different stages; manufacturing, application, usage, demolition phase. Consequently, this chapter can guide the designer and engineer to think on the elements of design and construction activity.

Green Building Efficiency and Sustainability Indicators

A rapid change in technology trend and lifestyle around the globe has induced a drastic increase in energy production, delivery, distribution, and consumption. That forced building planners, designers, scholars, researchers, and practitioners to come up with a sustainable solution within constrained economic and environmental dimensions. With a proper definition and usage of efficiency and sustainability dimensions in terms of green building design and construction, global challenges (global warming, climate change, poverty, global health and education, etc.) can be mitigated, leading to long-run sustainability. This chapter presents indicators to define, manage, measure, and enhance efficiency and sustainability phenomena for proposing a green building. A primary objective of this study is to identify influencing factors and set forth viable indicators and framework in terms of energy-efficient green building from different standpoints hiring innovative tangible and non-tangible tools and technique.

Green Smart Building

Non-sustainable buildings have threatened the ecosystem globally. In this chapter, a comprehensive discussion on the green and smart building is presented, considering how the buildings are made green and smart and how they support in developing sustainable cities. Though smart buildings are the positive catalyst towards sustainability, the excessive use of electronic devices puts a check in attaining the overall green goal. This chapter suggests merging green and smart technologies to have green smart building (GSB) with the aim of offering the populations a smart and eco-friendly living. Promises and challenges in attaining this goal are meticulously explored. The GSB concept is discussed in detail, suitably supported with the architectural models of overall and the various components of a GSB. The communication architecture is also presented emphasizing on various entities and activities in different levels of communication between various digital components of a GSB. A few cases have been presented showing practical applications of green and smart technologies in buildings.

IoT-Based Green Building

Among the various domains of IoT, one domain that is highly emerging in recent years is the application of IoT in green buildings. With the advent of IoT, the concept of green buildings has taken an even broader perspective. Incorporating intelligence into the current building management systems could revolutionize the buildings in terms of energy efficiency. The chapter explores some sound benefits of integrating IoT into a green building. It offers insight into the various technologies used in green construction, followed by some IoT-based architectures. Some machine learning algorithms that can be used to boost the efficiency of IoT devices are also discussed. Finally, the chapter dives into the future of IoT-enabled green buildings, and explores the challenges in achieving zero-energy buildings, while addressing the questions it raises. It focuses on how a green building, together with the internet of things, may lead to zero-energy buildings, thus carving our path towards a secure and energy-efficient future.

Green and Smart Buildings

Buildings across the world consume a significant amount of energy which is equivalent to one third of total primary energy resources available. This has led to lots of challenges with regard to supplies of energy, energy resources quick depletion, increase in building service demands, improvised comfort lifestyle along with time increase spend in builds; this all has increased the energy consumption. Even the global sustainability is also pushing the implementation of green buildings in the real world. Researchers and scientists have been working on this issue for a very long time, but still the issue is prevalent. The aim of this chapter is to present comprehensive and significant research conducted to date with regard to green buildings. The chapter provides in-depth analysis of design technologies (i.e., passive and active technologies) that lay a strong foundation for green building. The chapter also highlights the smart automation technologies which help in energy conservation along with various performance metrics.

A Comprehensive Overview of IoT-Based Green Buildings

Green building defines the way buildings are designed, constructed, operated, and maintained in such a way that the negative impacts are reduced and eliminated. The green building ensures to impart the sustainability of a building environment for quality living of citizens. It is to be noted that, not only the structure of the building, but its entire life cycle—including designing, constructing, operating, maintaining, renovating, and demolishing—must ensure responsibility towards environmental and natural resources. However, there are numerous factors that influence the effect of green building. Further factors such as pollution control, air quality monitoring, adaptability to evolving environment, and materials used also need to be handled by the green building. Hence, this chapter focuses on exploring the various issues, challenges and opportunities of green building concepts. Further, this chapter addresses how IoT-based green building will assist in achieving the goal through other emerging technology such as cloud computing.

Improved Design of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser for 3D Sensing in Internet of Things Applications

Internet of things (IOT) and Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) future can be seen together, since VCSEL technology-based 3D sensors are introduced for IoT applications. The improved VCSEL structure design with fixed wavelength using a thermally actuated cantilever structure is presented. This improved structure of VCSEL will help us in realizing athermal VCSEL. In athermal VCSEL the dependency of VCSEL on temperature will be much less because it will not require temperature controllers. Realizing fully temperature-independent VCSEL (i.e., athermal VCSEL) is still a challenge but we can reduce it to some extent. In this chapter, recent diversification of application of VCSEL technology from data communication to sensing has been discussed. This proposed VCSEL structure may give us an opportunity to improve the VCSEL technology. Therefore, smart 3D sensors based on VCSEL will help in making internet of things applications more reliable and will directly or indirectly serve the concept of smart homes and smart cities.

Sustainability of Green Building Practices in Residential Projects

A green building is a sustainable building that has minimal impacts on the environment throughout its life. For the purposes of this report, “green building” is understood to mean construction that makes efficient use of energy and resources in every aspect. This includes the production of building materials, and the design, use, and eventual demolition of a building in any sector (commercial, residential, industrial, public buildings) and at all stages, from new buildings to “retrofitting” or adapting existing ones. The construction sector, which accounts for 10% of global GDP, has direct and indirect impacts on the environment. It produces 23% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and buildings are responsible for between 30% and 40% of all material flows. A green building is a sustainable building that has minimal impacts on the environment throughout its life.