Today, the energy transition is at the heart of most territorial action plans. The goal? Achieving climate neutrality by 2050. In order to learn how to better manage energy consumption, the actors of the territories have integrated step by step the Smart EnergyThe development of these technologies has made it possible to optimize energy efficiency by combining new technologies and renewable energies, while making real savings on consumption. It is therefore at the crossroads between ecological and energy transition that what is commonly called: Smart Energy is implemented.

This is a sine qua non: to be responsible in 2021, buildings must limit their greenhouse gas emissions. This is why the integration of smart energy is seen as a key investment for territories and their consumers. Overall, this is linked to two major aspects of the ecological transition:

• • renewable energies

First of all, what is renewable energy? It is a source of natural elements (water, wind, organic matter, sunlight, etc.), which is constantly replenished at a rate at least equal to that of consumption.

In other words, renewable energy produces little or no waste or polluting emissions. It is thus opposed to fossil fuels derived from fuel deposits such as oil, coal or natural gas.

Smart energy is therefore based on these renewable energies, which are more ecological and which have the particularity of being inexhaustible on a human time scale, with the aim of reducing the ecological footprint and fighting against the waste of resources.

• • optimization of energy consumption

The major challenge today is to develop a collective culture of reducing energy consumption. One of the ways to achieve this is to rely on a common language based on different indicators: temperature, lighting, water, etc.

The smart energy then appears as this essential common language. It offers applications to manage energy consumption by suggesting changes in consumers’ daily habits in order to save energy.

Combined with a smart grid, it is even possible to anticipate consumption and therefore be proactive rather than reactive in saving energy.

Thanks to new information technologies relayed by the IoT, it is now possible for territories to have a better knowledge of the energy consumption that takes place there, particularly with the implementation of intelligent electrical networks, the smart grids.

It is the construction sector that is the first to be affected by the implementation of these new regulations, which are aimed at an ecological and economic energy transition. In buildings, for example, IoT can optimize energy management by maximizing self-consumption of local energy production from renewable energy sources.

IoT integration enables interoperability between devices and management systems in the building sector. A management system that is increasingly becoming autonomous.

The IoT is therefore a real lever for energy flexibility. Through smart energy, it enables the development towards energy transition and the emergence of digital uses for ecologically virtuous buildings, using as little as possible of fossil fuels such as gas, and sufficiently autonomous to claim self-consumption.

But how can IoT be used in practice to optimize the energy efficiency of buildings?

By putting in place all the elements that make up the IoT data value chain:

• • sensors to collect data
  • connectivity to transmit data storage
  • an application to analyze this collected storage and make appropriate recommendations

This will allow remote control of consumption management in real time.

Lighting in an empty office? Too high a temperature in a room? Off-peak hours to be optimized? The use of IoT is theeffective investment to optimize economy and energy efficiency.