Efficient Building Operation: Interoperability

The SmartBuilt4EU project has set up four task forces investigating issues related to smart buildings: their objective is to identify the remaining challenges and barriers to smart building deployment, and the associated research and innovation gaps that should be addressed in the near future. The topic investigated in 2021 addressed the optimal integration and use of smart solutions to allow an efficient building operation. The Task Force assessed the interoperability requirements to ensure a seamless operation, as well as the optimisation in terms of building costs and reduction of environmental impacts, over the full life cycle. Smart building solutions are strong leverage for increased energy efficiency in buildings, improved quality of life for occupants and added value for work performance. However, the degree of interoperability of technical building systems (and analysis/software tools that use data from these systems) can be a limiting factor affecting the smart services and impacts that can be delivered within a building. Interoperability is essential for allowing technical building systems to interact with the energy grids, can avoid duplication of efforts and is desirable in the light of future upgrades of the building. On the downside, it can increase the risk of malfunctioning and introduce cybersecurity and liability risks. This White paper focuses therefore on the following questions: How to define, implement, assess and monitor interoperability in a Smart Building so it can deliver its functionalities? To what extent can interoperability hamper a democratic and inclusive access to technologies and services? How can the risks associated to cybersecurity and malfunctioning be minimised? In its first part, this paper provides a state of the art regarding the following issues, specific attention being paid to EC-funded projects: Definition of interoperability: several definitions exist, and several categories of interoperability are described in the literature. This White Paper focuses on technical, syntactical and semantic interoperability of buildings systems and components, and adopts the following definition: “Interoperability is the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange data and use information” Standards, data exchanges protocols and ontologies: an overview of the IoT standards, protocols and ontology landscape is provided. Hardware solutions for the integration of legacy systems and domestic appliances (e.g. wired and wireless sensors and actuators) Interoperability assessment: Assessing the different levels of interoperability of a building is a challenge. Whilst interoperability is acknowledged as a very important concern in relation to the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI), there are significant limitations to the actionability of the explicit evaluation of the interoperability. The way interoperability is taken into account by other existing smart certifications also varies greatly from one certification to the other. A brainstorming process then enabled to identify some key barriers and drivers regarding the interoperability of smart building components and systems. Based on the State of the Art and the barriers and drivers, a number of research and innovation gaps were identified including R&D, Demo, regulation & legal framework, certification & standardisation and scaling up & industrialisation.