Smart energy efficient buildings - a living lab approach

In this paper we provide an overview of current research trends, challenges and issues in the domain of smart energy efficient buildings. Based on current research and literature we discuss topics like technology integration, semantic interoperability, automation, and the importance of considering user needs. Furthermore, we introduce a living lab approach, which allows us to conduct research on these topics in a real smart building environment. This living lab is a system for enabling smart energy efficient building applications based on a middleware approach. We describe the software design and the real-world deployment of this system in ten rooms of a university and eight rooms of an office building.