Accepted Manuscript

Title: Intelligent homes’ technologies to optimize the energy

performance for the net zero energy home

Authors: Fadi AlFaris, Adel Juaidi, Francisco

Manzano-Agugliaro

PII: S0378-7788(17)30947-7
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.07.089
Reference: ENB 7829

To appear in: ENB

Received date: 17-3-2017

Revised date: 5-6-2017
Accepted date: 31-7-2017

Please cite this article as: Fadi AlFaris, Adel Juaidi, Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro,
Intelligent homes’ technologies to optimize the energy performance for the net zero
energy home, Energy and Buildingshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.07.089

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Intelligent homes’ technologies to optimize the energy performance for the net zero energy
home

Fadi AlFaris1, Adel Juaidi1, Francisco Manzano-Agugliaro 1, *

Department of Engineering, CEIA3, University of Almeria, Almería, 04120, Spain

*Corresponding author. Tel.:+34 950015346; Fax: +34950015491.

E-mail address: fmanzano@ual.es

Highlights

1. Intelligent homes and smart technologies are a vital strategy to optimize

the energy performance.
2. The level of buildings intelligence will significantly contribute the
improvement of energy performance
3. The renewable energy systems in such smart homes will be a cost-
effective option.
4. A case study in Riyadh – Saudi Arabia about smart home’s technologies
was studied.
5. It was found that improves the energy performance by 37% better than
ASHRAE standards for family villas sector

Abstract

Nowadays the concept of intelligent homes and smart technologies are spreading out and
becoming a vital strategy to optimize the energy performance. Specially that the internet is
available to all our life aspects including educational system, health care, banking, commercial,
industries, mobile applications, etc. The energy sector is one of the important domains to use the
internet in the supply and demand sides. As the buildings consumes two third of electricity
globally, the real-time monitoring, by using the internet, is one of the key factors to manage the
energy consumption and to optimize the buildings’ performance. Accordingly, the buildings’
systems have utilized the information technology’s revolution in the last decade in several
manners. One of the very interesting synergies is that developing relationship between the energy
monitoring and the Internet of Things (IoT) for most of buildings’ sensors, energy meters and
building automation systems. These new technologies interact effectively with the Smart Home
Energy Management System. It increases its value and ensures securing tangible benefits. As
shown through the findings of this study, the level of buildings intelligence will significantly
contribute the improvement of energy performance. Not only, the energy demand and the use of
energy will be smartly efficient. As a result, the renewable energy systems in such smart homes
will be a cost-effective option and the probability to build a net zero energy home becomes
materialized and affordable economically.

This paper reviews the latest technologies and telecommunication techniques that used in the
homes to monitor energy performance. It also discusses a case study in Riyadh – Saudi Arabia
about smart home’s technologies, and the impact of using the renewable energy to improve the
energy performance compared to the energy benchmark. The main focus will be on the smart
technologies; interface and integration of the meters, sensors and monitoring systems with the
home energy management system (HEMS). The findings of this paper outline that the smart
home in practice provides the ability to the house to be net zero energy building. Especially that
it reduces the power demand and improve the energy performance by 37% better than ASHRAE
standards for family villas sector.

Keywords:

Smart home, Intelligent home, Home Energy Management System, Internet of Things, KSA.

Nomenclature

ASHRAE: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers

BACnet: Building Automation and Control networks

BAS: Building Automation Systems

CCTV: Closed-Circuit Television

DR: Demand Response

EUI: Energy Use Index

HAN: Home Area Network

HEMS: Home Energy Management System

ICT: Information and Communication Technologies

IECC: International Energy Conservation Code

IHEMS: Intelligent Home Energy Management System

IoT: Internet of Things

KSA: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

1. Introduction

In the last decade, the telecommunication technologies have been developed in different levels in
our life’s aspects; personally, and commercially [1] [2]. The electronic-based control systems for
the buildings [3] [4] such as Building Automation Systems (BAS) have been used widely in the
high-rise buildings. Hence, this automation system has been used recently in the residential
sector to manage the energy consumption under the name of Home Energy Management System
(HEMS). This technology becomes an essential component of the intelligent homes. However,
with the synergy of the internet and advanced communication technologies, HEMS can be
accessible from everywhere. Moreover, it can be integrated with all the available field devices
such as smart meters, indoor environmental sensors and actuators in one platform [5]. Home
Energy management system is used in the houses as computer-aided tool to monitor the energy
and water consumption and control the running mode of home’s appliances, fans, lighting and
pumps and reset the room temperature in order to optimize the energy performance [6] [7]. The
energy manager system is integrated with the home automation system or can be part of it
depends on the design and adopted functions. However, the intelligence level is increased in such
homes by adopting smart homes strategies. These techniques will not only manage the energy
usage in the houses but it will increase the comfort level of the occupants. Nowadays the
smartphone and tablets can be used to access this intelligent system [8]. These new technologies
of devices and the availability of internet connectivity will reduce the cost of such energy
management systems and increase their outcomes. Hence, the “Internet of Things” will play a
significant role to augment the popularization of the home energy management system [9].

The intelligent home energy management system is more advanced than the home energy
management system [10]. It should be integrated with the available subsystems such as, metering
system, lighting, demand control ventilator, CCTV, parking system, and indoor air quality
system. All these informations are analyzed and then displayed in a dashboard for ease of use.
The alarm detection system is an essential part for intelligent home energy management system
[11]. However, there are four factors to be considered when engineering the Intelligent Home
Energy Management System (IHEMS) [12]. These factors may secure the success of use of the
system. Besides, they will appraise the system’s effectiveness in terms of the performance,
intelligence level and the achieved benefits. These factors distinguish IHEMS than the other
conventional systems. They are; 1) autonomy, 2) controllability for complicated dynamics, 3)
man-machine interaction and, 4) bio-inspired behavior [13] [14].

The IHEMS should have ability for the optimum running mode. Not only, it the autonomous
level is high enough to control the energy efficient values and to maintain the sustainability
variables and comfort level parameters [15]. As a part of IoT requirements the system must
communicate with a variety of communication protocols [14] [16]. Accordingly, the ease of
accessibility to the IHEMS will be available at any time from everywhere by using mobile
applications and tablets to monitor the home’s energy systems behavior.

For the second factor, the intelligent home energy management system may optimize the energy
performance of the houses systems by considering a year-round time schedule for operations.
This schedule is applicable on the lighting system in identifying the running hours and the level
of dimming of luminance, room temperature set-points and fan schedule. This controllability
depends on such complicated dynamics like climate conditions, day-night times, occupancy
times and the demand over the year.

However, several components of IHEMS are connected to each other through wireless
communication and web-based interface. Thus, the man-machine interaction enhances this
characteristic in the system. The generated status reports and tracking the running data and
historical logs are a substantial strategy to take the most energy efficient decision and track any
deviations from the baseline and the budgeted performance [12]. Statistical analysis is the key
method that used through the give the proper control decision. The analytical functions correlate
the gathered “big data” from the field devices and the sub-meters with the other dynamic
variables. The generated reports and graphics represent the real-time of the home’s running
conditions.

However, the analytics algorithm of the IHEMS will be able to understand the behavior of
systems parameters and seasonal changes by considering the forth factor; bio-inspired behavior.

The smart homes contribute significantly to use the energy efficiently and accordingly, to reduce
the energy consumption. Therefore, the net zero energy homes would be achievable for homes
adopted the smart technologies such as IHEMS. Table 1 summarizes the advantages and
disadvantages of such homes.

2. Method and data

This paper discusses one of the intelligent homes constructed in Saudi Arabia in 2015 as a
showcase to appraise the net zero energy homes in the gulf estates. This research highlight the
contribution of smart home techniques to achieve the “low” or “net zero” energy houses. It has
used computerized hourly thermal energy model to simulate the sustainable design and report the
findings. The model has been built as per International Energy Conservation Code IECC- chapter
4 that developed for high performance houses. Then it has been compared to the ASHRAE 100-
2015 benchmark for the single-family villas’ category in Riyadh weather zone [53].

The data has been collected through a walk-thru that has been conducted in the site and through
construction documents. Moreover, a meeting and interview have been held with the developer
to collect the required information for the energy performance assessment. These data have been
processed and analyzed through building two computerized hourly thermal energy model; one
for the baseline as per ASHRAE 100-2015 Riyadh climate zone, and the other energy model was
according to the existing design of the studied smart and net zero energy home. Besides, the
paper has highlighted the energy benchmark of the proposed case compared to ASHRAE 100-
2015 Riyadh climate zone and the conventional houses. The smart home model has examined
accumulatively several technologies and techniques to measure the improvement of energy
behavior. Several intelligent home systems and technologies have been adopted and simulated to
study the reaction in such harsh weather. These measures include; Intelligent home energy
management system, renewable energy systems such as; solar PV panels, solar thermal and
ground source heat pumps as described in the next section. It highlights the role of internet of
things (IoT) to facilitate implementing such systems and maximize the benefits of energy
efficiency. In addition, this research highlights the importance of integration of the home energy
management system and the renewable energy systems to optimize the energy performance in
the energy models.

The case study shows the intelligent homes technologies that contribute to develop high energy
performance residential units. This research concentrates mainly on the electro mechanical
systems rather than the buildings’ envelope or architectural characteristics. The study aims to
highlight the benefits of adopting smart home technologies with the internet of things (IoT)
concept to achieve net zero energy home.

3. Intelligent Home Energy Management System background

The housing sector demand is growing as long as the worldwide population trend is rising up.
Therefore, the efforts should be aggregated together to examine innovative solutions to optimize
the energy performance [17-19]. These efforts could be used in demand and supply sides of
energy.
As an effective way to improve the energy and water systems performance in the homes, using
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) with the energy control and monitoring
systems. Thus, the combination between the home energy management system (HEMS) and the
Internet of Things (IoT) technology along with the renewable energy systems substantially
improve the energy performance during the operations. This integrated system is called
Intelligent Home Management Energy Management System. This paper highlights the value of
this system on the buildings and specially houses.

3.1 Internet of Things concept

The Internet of Things (IoT) is constructed by multiple ICT technologies such as wireless
communication, physical components, monitoring and analytics system, field devices and
meters, software, embedded systems and machine to machine system [20] [21]. IoT enables the
wireless sensor to communicate through the gateways directly to the remote devices such as
tablets or smart phone through the communication network. Accordingly, the user will be able to
share the information in two-ways communication with the machines and devices. The end-user
can measure, monitor and control the operation of the devices and electro-mechanical systems
through the HEMS [22-25].
The IoT gateway server is the main component, which is responsible for receiving the data from
the field devices and transmitting the instructions to the actuators for controlling purposes in
home areas [26] [27].
IoT manage to transfer large sized of information and field data that captured from the sensors,
meters, controllers, actuators and other field devices. These data will be supported by wireless
communication of the internet and cloud structure [28] [5]. The parameters that needed to be
monitored overtime such as the energy consumption and indoor and outdoor environmental
conditions will use the IoT to transfer these data, and then the local management layer to analyze
the real data and suggest the actions. Accordingly, the HEMS will rely on the IoT structure to
manage the energy parameters and control the systems based upon the energy efficiency.

3.2 Home Energy Management System

Home energy management system spreads rapidly in the housing sector [29] [30]. One of the key
factors that fuelled this growth of such HEMS is the availability of network, wireless
communication and the market transformation [31] for the smart phones applications and tablet
that makes life easier. This ICT revolution helps the householder to fine the provision to
optimize the energy performance in the house and improve the monitoring and logging systems
[32] [33]. Using the HEMS in the houses increases the intelligence level of homes. These homes
might be called intelligent or smart homes. In the Intelligent homes, the majority of systems are
integrated together in one platform. This means that the home’s loads such as air conditioning
and ventilation systems, lighting and plug loads, renewable energy and other smart appliances
and equipment, are integrated and accessed from everywhere by using Internet of thing
technology [34]. Accordingly, the impact of using such platform will provide an outstanding
energy savings for the householder [35][30][36].

Generally, the HEMS include several components that are important to integrate the homes’
energy systems and services. The main item of this system is the main controller that includes
the monitoring software. This software will have significant characteristics to provide the owner
the required field information such as the indoor air quality data, climate conditions, systems’
and appliances operating status, energy analysis, lighting information and security systems [37-
41]. All these informations will be real-time monitored and analyzed in an analytical
methodology. The gathered data will be normalized and compared with different variables such
as the weather data and occupancy behavior over time [35][42-44]. Additionally, the smart
meters play a key role for the demand response that would be integrated with the HEMS. It will
provide proper scheduling for the operations of the several integrated systems by using “Internet
of Things” IoT technology. This system will allow the signals that communicated through the
power utility to activate the demand response and accordingly, the Intelligent home will be act
based upon the grid requirements [39]. Another important system that shall be integrated with
the HEMS is the renewable energy that installed on the roofs of such intelligent homes. The most
popular system is the Photovoltaic (PV) that can generate the electricity and feed it either to the
home or grid as per the home demand.

More information about the complement of HEMS and their functions are outlined in the below
sub-sections and summarized in Figure 1.

3.2.1 Energy analytics platform

The home energy management system is analytical software including human machine interface
to interact with the inputs and outputs, and dashboard to summarize the results. It is a real-time
monitoring, logging, management, control and alarming system that provide a full analysis for
the home energy and indoor environmental performance.

Several functions are performed by HEMS to improve the energy performance in the houses as
illustrated in Figure 2. Measurement of the energy consumption, systems’ performance and the
indoor environmental parameters are the key elements to monitor over time. By such function,
proper comparison could be conducted between the actual energy performance and the baseline.
As a result, the energy savings would be observed for all the connected energy systems.
However, in order to do such analytical process of comparison between the baseline and the real-
time energy information, the gathered and measured data should be saved and stored in the
HEMS. These historical and actual parameters and information should be logged and the
retrieved in a proper data base system. The storage capacity should be enough to save the energy
behavior against the variables such as the climate conditions and occupancy rate. Furthermore,
HEMS will provide the chance to the householder through a remote control from everywhere to
control the operations of the home appliances, equipment and reset the room temperature. This
remote control happens via smart phones, tablet or PC when it is connected over internet (IoT).
However, to make sure that the systems are self-controlled and autonomous enough, a stand-
alone control algorithm are provided for each system separately to assure the optimization of
energy performance. However, in order to augment the operation of all home’s energy systems in
integrative approach, and to differentiate the intelligent home energy system functions from
other traditional building management system, the management function is a substantial
characteristic of such HEMS. This function will allow the optimization of the different energy
system such as the renewable energy, home appliance, plug loads and air-conditioning systems.
Such management technique will increase the energy efficiency and save the power demand
along with the energy consumption. Furthermore, the HEMS will provide an alarm detecting
system notification through the smart phone. This approach is a vital function to make sure the
optimum operation of all the monitored system and to sustain the indoor parameters [45-52].
3.2.2 Smart Environmental Sensors

The field devices the smart sensors are the key elements that are installed at home to provide
feedback about the indoor environmental circumstances. The physical parameters that are
measured over time by these sensors are the room temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide
concentration and the luminance level of the artificial light and the natural daylight [54-56].

These smart devices sense the physical parameters by using some built-in electronics to compute
these inputs and then push it through the home area network (HAN) or zigbee to the HEMS. The
smart sensors provide a precise data and more accurate environmental parameters with less noise
and signal interference. They are an essential component of the Internet of Things (IoT). These
smart sensors have the ability to share the measured information over the home network to smart
phones and tablets. Furthermore, the data processing is one of the advanced functions of these
smart devices along with data conversion and communication [3] [57-60].

3.2.3 Smart Meters

The smart houses use the energy efficiently. They read and log the energy performance for the
base building and the sub-systems overtime. In advanced technologies and to interact with the
grid capacities and peak times, the smart meters are used to transmit and receive the information
from and to the utilities. This two-way communication system is the smart strategy that utilized
by the intelligent homes for the demand response [61][62]. Smart meter shall give the proper
information to the HEMS to coordinate with the grid to schedule the operation of the home
appliances to avoid the peak loading times [63]. However, providing smart meters will require
appropriate infrastructure in the houses, city and utilities regarding telecommunication
technologies [61].

The smart meters are installed in the intelligent homes and then integrated with the HEMS.
These smart meters may cover; 1) the electricity consumption of the systems and sub-systems
such as plug loads, lighting, pumps and fans, 2) gas for domestic hot water and heating, 3) water
for cold domestic water consumption and, 4) cooling energy meters if the houses are connected
to a district cooling pant. The main functions of these smart meters are; 1) to measure the energy
and water consumption, 2) communicate the data to the grid to augment the demand response
technique, 3) integrate the energy data to the HEMS to enable the householder monitoring the
real-time consumption over time by the smart phones application [64][65][112].

3.2.4 Communication protocols and networks

The used networking technologies are classified into wired communication and wireless. The
IHEMS in the smart home is communicated to the smart field devices; sensors and meters
through HAN and to the smart remote control devised such as smart phones and tablets through
the internet connection. HAN is part of local area network within the home boundaries. It can be
used wire or wireless. However, it depends on the required security level and the estimated cost
of the field devices. Usually the cost will be less in case of the wireless technology for
installation and operation, whereas the systems will be much secured by using wired
communication [56].
A substantial role is played by the communication technology for the smart houses and systems.
However, the selection of the networking type depends on several factors that related to the
project itself and the level of information security [56][66][67]. However, the smart grids shall
cover wide area of buildings and facilities that may use several communication technologies for
example fiber optics and wireless with different protocols [68][61].
However, as a wireless communication technology, ZigBee is one of the most secured networks
compared to its low cost. ZigBee has designed as per the IEE 802.15.4 standard, considering that
this type of standard specifies local area network that would be relevant to HAN [66][69][70].
For the long distance and low density of points, Power Line Communication (PLC) is one of the
preferred options. PLC use the existing data infrastructure of communication. Therefore, it is a
good option because of the low cost [71-74]. Moreover, ModBus is one of the most reliable
communication protocols [75]. Besides, it is popular because of open source characteristic [76].
However, it has low security level compared to other protocols [77]. For mobile communication
that used to interact with the IHEMS, GSM is used globally [78]. Not only, it is used for smart
meters communication applications [79-81].
Furthermore, the communication protocol that complies with European standard EN 13757 is M-
bus that is recommended to be selected for smart meters especially gas and heat meters [82-84].
However, the most popular communication technology is BACnet that developed by ASHRAE
[85]. The reason of the wide use of this protocol is that it has the capability to be integrated with
several types of stand-alone systems without additional materials. BACnet is adopted by systems
integrators for the field devised and management systems like any building automation systems
(BAS). However, for the wireless communication, BACnet coordinate with ZigBee in order to
save the capital cost of installation [86-88]. As an open source the combination between ZigBee
and BACnet could be used for the IHEMS.

3.3 Home Renewable Energy Systems

With the upward trend of the population and the increase of the energy demand globally, the
need to adopt an alternative clean energy system from renewable sources is required [89-91]. As
a result of using renewable energy, the carbon emissions, climate change and air pollution will
influence positively. Furthermore, the built environment and the new development shall
contribute for smart growth of the world countries [92-95]. Accordingly, the alternative
renewable energy strategies were developed and showed a high market transformation toward
the sustainability and clean energy systems, such as Photovoltaic (PV), solar hot water,
geothermal heat pump and wind turbine [96].

3.3.1 Renewable energy systems at home

3.3.1.1 Solar system; PV and Solar hot water

Solar energy is one of the most popular renewable energy that is used for the buildings (c). It has
several technologies such as solar cooling, solar hot water and solar PV. The cost and ease of use
are the key factors to spread the installation of these new technologies at the end user side
especially for homes. For the residential sector the solar energy can be utilized through two
systems; solar thermal and solar PV [97].

All these systems contribute substantially to reduce the energy bills of the householders. This
energy reduction achieves from the direct electricity generation through the solar PV, which
converts the sun light to electrical energy directly by chemical reaction of the semiconducting
materials. This PV system is installed on the roof on-site or centrally off-site. For the intelligent
houses, the PV system can be connected with the electricity grid or off-grid system depending on
availability of electricity infrastructure and net metering tariff. However, for the off-grid
connection, the charge controller should be part of the PV system’s components to protect the
overcharge and over discharge functions. Another key component of the PV system is the
inverter that converts the DC to AC as shown in Figure 3. The load is fed by the PV through the
inverter primarily, and then the surplus of power will return to the grid or in case of PV shortfall
the grid will supply the loads directly [98][99].

For solar thermal, the solar hot water is very popular in households in all over the world. Using
the solar thermal for domestic hot water will reduce drastically the electricity consumption in
case of the electric heaters and the gas consumption in case of hot water boilers. The cost of solar
hot water is affordable and very feasible [98].

3.3.1.2 Geothermal (ground-source heat pump)

Another renewable energy source is available and can be used in the smart house is the
geothermal energy. The source of this energy is the heat from the underground that has a
constant temperature. In winter, the earth is used as a heat source for heating, whereas; in
summer, it will be used as a heat sink for cooling. The ground sourced heat pump is used as a
terminal unit to supply the hot or cold air to the indoor homes’ thermal zones when exchanging
the heat from the earth [100]. For many of smart homes in the world, shallow geothermal energy
is utilized in combination with the ground sourced heat pump to save the cooling energy demand
and consumption [101].

3.4 Integration of renewable energy systems with the HEMS

Intelligent homes usually use several renewable energy resources such as PV system, solar hot
water and geothermal energy. Home energy management system integrates with these clean
energy technologies to manage the operation and optimize the performance with the utility
power. The HEMS ensures utilizing the renewable sources primarily with improving the power
quality. Besides it stores the energy to use it at the peak times and as a result cutting the peak
load [102].

The generated energy by solar is not constant over time. It depends on the solar radiation that
may change within the day, the months and the seasons. This fluctuation of energy supply may
affect the household energy needs [103]. Accordingly, the balance between the demand and
supply should be managed by additional smart management layer that is installed at the
household side. Therefore, a combination of several energy sources should be available to assure
the energy demand. As a result, a single renewable energy source may not be adequate to supply
the energy all over the time without augmentation by the grid or other source [104][105].

The smart home energy storage system such as battery plays a significant role to reduce the
reliance on the grid. Hence, the generated solar energy during the day time from the solar panels
is consumed directly by the household. However, the surplus of such energy would be stored in
the battery by charging controller that would be communicated with the HEMS as shown in
Figure 2.

4 Intelligent Net Zero Energy home in hot climate – a case study

This paper highlights the intelligent homes that consider the sustainable strategies and the
integrated home management system using internet of things. As a case study of such
technologies and systems in one of the hottest area in the earth in Saudi Arabia, this section and
the following parts demonstrate the anticipated improvement in the energy performance for
residential sector by adopting smart houses strategies. The engineering and energy systems have
been designed to meet the highest standards of sustainability using internet of things concept to
monitor the indoor environmental parameters and energy meters, and control the actuators via
home energy management system.

4.1 House’s initial conditions

The studied house is located in Riyadh (24.7136° N, 46.6753° E) the capital of Saudi Arabia.
The weather in Riyadh is very hot and dry, moreover, it has a unique climate condition that
should be taken into the account during the design, construction and operation especially for
residential sector. Riyadh weather is classified as hot-dry for 3 months (April, May, and
October), warm-dry for 3 months (February, March, and November), Moderate for 2 months
(January- December) and exceeded the heat limit for 4 months (June-September). The average
temperature in summer ranges between 43°C - 25°C. In winter, the climate is still warm with an
average temperature range between 22°C - 8°C. The average humidity in summer is 12.5% and
45% in winter [53]. The total gross floor area of the studied house is 550 m². It has two livable
floors; ground floor and first floor as illustrated in Figure 4.
4.2 Smart home’s systems

The studied house adopted the sustainable strategies during the design by considering several
environmental friendly standards and green construction code such as LEED for homes and
International Energy Conservation Code – IECC. Moreover, the intelligent home energy
management system has been designed and developed to be integrated with the existing services
and field devices through the home local network. In addition, it communicates through via
internet to the smart applications of the available smart phones. Thus, the householder can
monitor, control and manage the energy parameters and the home’s security.
The key systems that have been designed for the studied home are outlined in Figure 6 and
highlighted as below.

4.2.1 Home Energy Management System

HEMS is a central hub for logging, controlling and monitoring for home appliances, air
conditioning systems, lighting controllers, security system and installed renewable energy
systems. The householder will be able to monitor the energy performance through the smart
meters communication. Besides, the system will be accessible through the internet connection
(IoT) from everywhere. The monitoring system shall provide hourly and daily readings of energy
consumption over time. This real-time actual data is compared to the energy baseline that was
generated through the energy model as per ASHRAE 90.1 2007 during the project design
activity. HEMS analytics system has the ability to measure and calculate the systems efficiency,
losses, and consumption of energy.
The system will be using an open protocol for communication between field devices and
actuators. Accordingly, through HEMS, the owner will be able to access the separate systems
and resetting the parameters and changing the status for best energy management practices.
Besides, HEMS integrates with the different control systems. These various systems don’t work
in an isolated island, but in integrative approach through the communication bus and HEMS.
Several areas are controllable in the studied smart house such as; 1) dimming the lighting level
up and down as per the demand and the occupants’ availability through DALI gateway, 2)
resetting the room temperature for each zone to meet the thermal comfort when required only, 3)
controlling the shutters and blinds according to the residents’ availability in line with the
required privacy and, 4) the ability to connect or disconnect the home appliances operations
based on the peak load and demand in order to save the generated energy by the solar panels.
4.2.2 Renewable energy systems
The house has been designed to become net zero energy house by reducing the demand through
sustainable design strategies, using HEMS and then adopting the PV system and solar hot waters.
The roof area is dedicated to absorb approximately 26kW generated electricity by the solar PV
panels as shown in Figure 6. The PV system generates the required home energy consumption
for one year. The efficiency of the PV panels is higher than 20%. The module is able to
withstand the harsh weather conditions in Riyadh such as sand storm, dust and wind speed. The
other PV systems components like inverter and charge controllers are integrated with the HEMS
to monitor the efficiency and the performance over time. Besides, this system is designed to
provide a charging station for the electric vehicle, if available.
For the solar domestic hot water, the solar heater system provides the heating energy to the water
to raise the temperature to 55°C through flat plate solar panels. An isolated water tank is
considered as storage for hot water. An electricity source will be used as a backup. The system is
designed to provide 95% of the required heat for the domestic hot water.

4.3 Results

The strategies adopted to design and build the studied smart home were based on IECC standard
and considering the benchmark of ASHRAE 100-2015 Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings.
As a single-family villa category, the energy use index in Riyadh zone is 107 kWh/m²/year [53].
Accordingly for 550m² gross floor area of the enclosed air conditioning spaces, the baseline of
the energy consumption is 58,850 kWh. However, in order to analyze the energy performance of
the studied smart home that use HEMS in integrative approach as outlined in Figure 5, the time
scheduling of the lighting and air-conditioning system along with appliances and shutters have
been estimated in a daily profile and then simulated in a computerized hourly thermal model.
Besides, the control system of the thermostat that relies on the climate conditions is activated and
simulated by using the same software to reflect its impact on the energy efficiency. According to
all the above strategies and smart home’s measures, eQuest software has been used to simulate
the studied smart home’s systems including the HEMS impact. The software uses DOE-2
simulation engine for 8760 hours per year. The climate file that utilized for the model was
METENORM’s for Riyadh data.
According to the model, the energy distribution shows that the HVAC load consumes 50% of the
total energy load. The combination between ventilation, heating and cooling load is 21,636 kWh
per annum as illustrated in Table 2. In addition, lights and home appliances contribute 37% of
the home energy consumption, which equals 15,739 kWh per annum. As a result, the total annual
energy consumption including the domestic hot water is 42,925 kWh. However, 95% of the
required energy for the domestic hot water would be generated by solar thermal considering the
electric heaters will be used as a backup. Figure 7 shows the energy balance and energy systems
distribution.
Therefore, since this smart home is a net zero energy building, the installed PV system must
cover 100% of the annual energy consumption. Accordingly, the PV will generate about
47,173kWh per annum considering 26kW capacity. Figure 7 and Figure 8 present the renewable
energy systems (PV) power generation compared to the required energy per annum to be
consume.
PV system has been designed to satisfy the energy consumption of the smart house, which is
42,925kWh per annum. The on-grid design has been simulated through PVsyst 6.62 software
using meteonorm 7.1 weather data. As it is a rooftop system, the available area on the roof was
300m²; however, the used area for the PV arrays was 166m². The power of the PV cells is 26kW
peak with 30kW inverter. The design has considered all possible losses to produce the required
annual energy. These losses are illustrated in figure 10 such as inverter losses, PV modules
losses and performance deviation due to irradiance level and the ambient temperature, and the
wiring losses.

The intelligent home PV system injects to the grid 47,173kWh per annum. As illustrated in table
3, the monthly energy injection for 26kWp of PV system varies according to the weather
conditions in Riyadh. The dust or cloudy weather reduces the solar radiation and the efficiency
of the PV production. The month of October has the highest grid injection although it is not the
highest horizontal solar irradiation, while February is the lowest grid injection. Besides, the
systems performance ratio is the lowest in July, whereas it is the greatest in January as the PV
array performance depends on the ambient temperature as presented in the table 3.

The energy model’s results shows that a profound improvement in the energy consumption
compared to the ASHRAE 100-2015 benchmark. The energy performance of the studied smart
home is better than ASHRAE 100-2015 by 37% as shown in figure 9. The energy use index of
the proposed of the smart home is 78 kWh/m²/year compared to 107 kWh/m²/year for the
baseline [106].

4.4 Discussion

The main goal of the studied Intelligent home to achieve is to reduce the power demand in order
to generate the required energy from renewable sources such as PV solar panel and solar hot
water. Accordingly, the home is designed to be a net zero energy home. Thus, the installed solar
panels should be enough to cover the annual energy loads. In order to achieve this concept, the
intelligent home systems play a substantial role to cut the peak load and reduce the demand by
adopting the intelligent home energy management system. HEMS will be able not to measure
and monitor the energy consumption only, but to control all the connected energy systems to
increase the efficiency.

In order to evaluate the impact of intelligent HEMS, the proposed design of the studied home has
been developed based upon IECC. The expected result should meet the ASHRAE 100-2015
benchmark for homes since IECC is equivalent to ASHRAE standards but for homes. However,
the energy model of the studied home has been simulated the time scheduling of the electro
mechanical systems and control strategies as outlined in section 6.2.1 and presented in Figure 5.
The achieved results of the adopted techniques are explained as follows;
1) Smart home’s system has used DALI gateway to control the luminance level for each
luminaire based upon the demand. DALI system is a digital control system for lights that
control the status and the lumen level for each lamp according to the occupancy rate and
the daylight [107]. This control measure by DALI system may save the lighting power
consumption from 40%-60% as per recent studies [108][109]. Considering that the
lighting load contribution in residential sector is about 20% of the total energy savings
per annum, the expected savings of the studied villa by installing such system is
approximately 10% of the total energy cost with less than 4 years as a simple payback
period.

2) The studied home used a programmable thermostat that resetting the room temperature
based upon the outside weather and occupants’ behavior. It applies conservative
parameters to control the room temperature of the thermal zone during unoccupied times
and low activity periods such as sleeping times. This temperature setback strategy may
reduce the cooling energy consumption 7% of the total HVAC load for increasing 1°C
only [110][17]. However, according to the studied home, the HVAC load is 50% out of
total energy consumption. Therefore, the expected savings of setback of room
temperature thermostat is about for 3°C as a setback is not less than 11% of the total
energy savings of the smart home.

3) The solar heat contributes approximately 30% of the home’s cooling load [18].
Therefore, mitigating the direct sun heat by controlling the shutters through an automatic
blind system during unoccupied times would be very sustainable technique [17]. For the
studied home HEMS integrates with the automatic blind system to reduce the sunlight
without compromising the privacy. It is expected to save 10% of the total energy
consumption.

4) HEMS is designed to reschedule the plug loads and home appliances as per the peak load
generated by PV system to ensure the loads are controlled and less than the capacity of
the PV system. This measure may improve the energy usage of the home appliances by
30% [111]. For the studied villa, this scheduling control is expected to save 6% out of the
total consumption. In addition, HEMS has been developed to be integrated with the PV
 system to monitor the energy data that injected to the grid against the consumed energy
by the house’s systems. This system keeps tracking the net energy report to ensure the net
zero energy all over the year.
On the other hand, the energy model runs the interaction between each measure in accumulative
manner. For instance, reducing the light power will mitigate the heat dissipation and as a result
lowering the cooling load consumption. Accordingly, it is not practical to calculate each energy
conservation strategy as a stand-alone system. On the contrary, the integrative approach should
be followed as a method to reach to the most reasonable findings by run a thermal energy model.

The results show that the smart home in practice provides the ability to the house to be net zero
energy building. Especially that it reduces the power demand and improve the energy
performance by 37% better than ASHRAE standards of Riyadh climate zone for family villas
sector. As shown in Figure 10, 26kW PV capacity will be enough to generate more than the
energy required for the studied house, which is 42,925kWh per annum.

Moreover, a significant improvement in the energy performance for the intelligent house
compared to the conventional houses. By using the energy use index as a parameter to evaluate
the energy performance, the business as usual EUI in the region is 332 kWh/m²/year [18], which
is much higher than case study. Table 4 outlines the comparison of the three cases of houses; as
per ASHRAE standard, conventional homes and the smart home.

Several lessons learned have been faced by the project team for such net zero energy home
strategy in the region; in the design, construction, commissioning, and operation stages. During
the design stage, the team should adopt the integrative approach instead of the traditional
sequential work flow. Various team disciplines and specialties should get all together to agree on
the design standards and consider the energy efficiency at the early stage to avoid the reworking.
Design workshops and meeting should be an essential part of this integrative approach. For the
construction, the contractor should be aware of the installed system to be commissioned
according to the design basis. Therefore, the quality assurance of the smart homes’ technologies
should be part of the construction and commissioning plan. During the operations, to monitor the
energy performance and maintain the efficiency as specified are the key practices to get the
benefit of the systems. Besides, conducting the cleaning and maintenance works as per the
guidelines is an essential measure to optimize the solar modules’ efficiency and the other
technologies parts especially in the hot and dusty weather existing in the region.

5 Conclusion

Intelligent home technologies play substantial role to manage the energy performance and to
optimize its consumption. In order to develop an affordable net zero energy home, the intelligent
home energy management system based on the internet of things concept is one of the key
elements to achieve this goal. By spreading out the smart phones and the internet connection
globally, the smart field devices and the actuators facilitate the wireless connection to monitor
the homes operating factors over time. The HEMS acts as a master controller to log, control,
monitor and manage the energy data. This advanced technology contributes significantly to
reduce the energy demand, enhance the demand response and improve the occupants’ awareness
and behavior.

The anticipated improvement of using intelligent home’s systems has been presented in the
thermal hourly energy model. The smart net zero energy home consumes 78 kWh/m²/year,
whereas the baseline as per ASHRAE 100-2015 energy use index is 107 kWh/m²/year, this
means that these technologies optimize the energy performance by 37% compared to the
ASHRAE standard for the single-family villas. As a result, these techniques will provide a solid
base to adopt the renewable energy systems and then the low or zero energy homes with the high
energy efficient design.

Numerous technologies and systems influence the level of intelligence of houses. These
technologies may be expensive. Thus, the householders or developed might be disappointed to
proceed with such costly technologies. Accordingly, the first step to initiate the smart home is to
pursue sustainable design strategy. This design must consider the energy efficiency and green
passive design, life cycle cost assessment, energy efficient material, high efficient electro-
mechanical systems and then adopting the renewable energy systems. The above design should
be supervised by a commissioning authority to ensure that these strategies have been executed as
per the design to meet the energy efficiency. Besides, the cost-benefit analysis is one of the
important steps to be discussed to intensify the householders and encourage selecting the most
appropriate options.

The intelligent home’s perspective is not an advanced technology for modernization only, but it
is a smart way to optimize the energy performance and to operate the house’s energy systems in
a smart and efficient way. Smart homes become a sustainable practice that should be adopted by
the householders to reduce the carbon emission and use the renewable energy sources in the
housing sector.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank and acknowledge the project management team of SABIC,
especially Mr. Mohammad Al-Aboudi and his team in KSA for providing the valuable
information about the discussed case study in this paper.
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Figure 1: Intelligent home energy management system

Variable inputs Energy analytics platform Outputs

Monitoring, Storing, control,

management & alarming

Figure 2: Home energy management system functions

Figure 3: the smart home solar PV system
Figure 4: Studied House – existing project

Figure 5 design of Home Energy Management System- a case study

Figure 6: Utilizing solar energy on the roof of the studied home
25000

20000
Annual energy, kWh

15000

10000

5000

0
Hot Water HVAC Lights & Appliances
Home's systems

Figure 7: Annual energy consumption of the studied smart home

 50000
45000
40000
Annual energy, kWh

35000
30000
25000 Photovoltaics
20000
15000
Annual Energy
10000 Consumption
5000
0
Photovoltaics Annual Energy Consumption

Figure 8: Annual energy consumption and PV supplied energy of the studied smart home

Figure 9: Comparison between ASHRAE baseline and the studied smart home
Figure 10 PV system losses flow
Table 1: Advantages and disadvantages of smart net zero energy homes
Advantages
The energy systems and services in smart
homes are managed remotely and efficiently.
For example; the renewable energy systems,
energy storage systems, home appliances,
lighting and air-conditioning systems are
controlled to provide sustainable energy
savings without compromising the comfort
level [32].
The energy systems are monitored overtime.
Thus, the operator will be able to manage and
predict the energy consumption.
The operator or occupant will be able to
improve the behavior by monitoring the data.
The smart net zero energy homes enable the
Disadvantages
These houses are more expensive that the
conventional homes. It is unaffordable for the
average people. However, the market
transformation may contribute in the future to
find alternatives with reasonable costs [17].
The renewable systems and IHEMS will need
intensive training to the householder to use and
interact. Hence, a minimum educational level
should be available for the operator.
Regular maintenance by service providers are
required to maintain the operation of these
advanced and integrated systems efficiency.
The householder needs to allocate a certain
budget for the maintenance works [18].
householder to schedule the energy usage upon Very few designers or builders have the
the demand in order to interact with the smart necessary skills or experience to build Zero
grid [96]. Net Energy Buildings

Isolation for building owners from future Challenge to recover higher initial costs on
energy price increases. resale of building - appraisers are uninformed -
their models do not consider energy
Increased comfort due to more-uniform interior
temperatures (this can be demonstrated with
comparative isotherm maps)
Climate-specific design may limit future ability
Reduced requirement for energy austerity to respond to rising-or-falling ambient
temperatures (global warming)
Reduced total cost of ownership due to
improved energy efficiency

Reduced total net monthly cost of living Without an optimized thermal envelope
embodied energy and resource usage is higher
Extra cost is minimized for new construction than needed
compared to an afterthought retrofit.

Higher resale value as potential owners

demand more Zero Net Energy Buildings than
available supply

The value of a Zero Net Energy Buildings

building relative to similar conventional
building should increase every time energy
costs increase

Future legislative restrictions, and carbon

emission taxes/penalties may force expensive
retrofits to inefficient buildings

Table 2: Energy distribution and load breakdown

Systems Annual Energy (kWh)
Hot Water 5,550
HVAC 21,636
Lights & Appliances 15,739
Annual Energy Consumption 42,925

Photovoltaics 47,173

Table 3 grid injection of PV system

Month Global horizontal Grid injection Performance Ambient

irradiation (kWh) Ratio Temperature
(kWh/m2) (Celsius)
January 131.8 3968 0.841 13.86
February 141.4 3745 0.824 16.9
March 184.3 4167 0.792 21.8
April 198.8 3930 0.78 26.82
May 224.9 3907 0.754 33.13
June 235.5 3818 0.744 34.97
July 227.9 3752 0.738 36.69
August 210.3 3779 0.739 36.74
September 192.5 3926 0.749 32.72
October 177 4262 0.768 27.86
November 134.4 3798 0.805 20.33
December 130.5 4121 0.832 15.67
Year 2189.2 47173 0.779 26.51

Table 4 A comparison of Energy use Index between the buildings as usual, ASHRAE 100-2015
and the case study

Energy Use Index- EUI, kWh/m²/year

Business as usual in Gulf Estates 332

ASHRAE 100-2015 for Riyadh climate 107

Case Study- Smart home 78