Comfort as a Service: A New Paradigm for Residential Environmental Quality Control

Juan Gómez-Romero, Miguel Molina-Solana, María Ros, M. Dolores Ruiz and M. J. Martin-Bautista
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Juan Gómez-Romero: Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Miguel Molina-Solana: Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
María Ros: Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
M. Dolores Ruiz: Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
M. J. Martin-Bautista: Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: This paper introduces the concept of Comfort as a Service (CaaS), a new energy supply paradigm for providing comfort to residential customers. CaaS takes into account the available passive and active elements, the external factors that affect energy consumption and associated costs, and occupants’ behaviors to generate optimal control strategies for the domestic equipment automatically. As a consequence, it releases building occupants from operating the equipment, which gives rise to a disruption of the traditional model of paying per consumed energy in favor of a model of paying per provided comfort. In the paper, we envision a realization of CaaS based on several technologies such as ambient intelligence, big data, cloud computing and predictive computing. We discuss the opportunities and the barriers of CaaS-centered business and exemplify the potential of CaaS deployments by quantifying the expected energy savings achieved after limiting occupants’ control over the air conditioning system in a test scenario.

Keywords: comfort as a service; energy management; building control; big data; ambient intelligence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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