Cisco has announced Smart Connected Buildings as its latest emerging technology to assist in delivering on its vision for Smart+Connected Communities; one of 30 key market adjacencies that the company has identified. The initiative addresses the growing need for sustainable energy to meet the demand of increasingly urbanized populations, with the solution providing a network-enabled blueprint for successful cities of the future that will run on networked information. The technology builds upon Cisco's networked sustainability platform to further increase energy efficiency, create new tools for ‘energy-aware' city management and enable economic opportunity, as well as provide an increase in the quality of life for citizens. “Today's announcement of Smart Connected Buildings as Cisco's latest Emerging Technology highlights the strength of our internal innovation engine for identifying and developing solutions in key market adjacencies,” said Marthin De Beer, senior vice president, Emerging Technologies Group. “Our aim is to create a new set of systems and solutions that take the network and extend the power of the platform to deliver sustainable energy management from information technology and commercial buildings all the way through to smart grid and the home,” he added. A key component of the Smart+Connected Communities vision is the Cisco Network Building Mediator, a Smart Connected Buildings solution that provides intelligence over the IP network to interconnect and enable building systems; utilities such as heating, lighting, electrical, security, ventilation and cooling. The service will assist with the building of smart and energy-efficient buildings of the future; providing operators and owners of these buildings with new ways of managing how energy is used, based on policies that make sense for occupants. Cisco believes that the network has the potential to create a significant impact on global energy efficiency and reduction of green house Gas emissions by further integrating information technology.
