Occupant-Centric Ecosystem: from Smart Buildings to Smart Cities

Systems Conversation with Bing Dong, Associate Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Syracuse University and Associate Director, Syracuse Center of Excellence for Environmental and Energy Systems

This Systems Conversation was conducted before Bing Dong gave a talk in our systems seminar series. Title of his talk: Occupant-Centric Ecosystem: from Smart Buildings to Smart Cities

By 2050, a staggering 70% of the world’s population is projected to live and work in cities, while two-thirds of global primary energy consumption will be attributed to cities, leading to the production of 71% of global direct energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. People currently spend more than 90% of their time in buildings, which contributes to more than 70% of overall U.S. electricity usage. Considering this, occupant behavior becomes one of the leading influences on energy consumption in buildings and cities. The proliferation of urban sensing, IoT, and big data in cities provides unprecedented opportunities for a deeper understanding of occupant behavior patterns at both building and urban scales. Meanwhile, traditional design and operation of the smart building ecosystem only considers physical aspects of energy infrastructure. Future smart cities, with connected buildings, increasing penetration of distributed energy resources, and widely adopted electric vehicles, require an occupant-centric approach for optimal and distributed coordination of clusters of buildings and DERs with the smart grid while considering human behavior and mobility. This talk will present and discuss how occupant behavior impacts building operations while considering grid needs and flexibility, with an emphasis on efforts to model occupant behavior at both building and urban levels, and improve buildings-to-grid integration across spatial scales in cities, to foster an occupant-centric ecosystem for future smart cities.