Towards the diffusion of smart buildings: The economic viability of the adoption of a home automation system in an existing building

Home Automation systems represent one of the most promising technologies for energy efficiency, which is currently considered one of main factors enabling an environmental sustainable growth. However, several barriers hinder a massive diffusion of Home Automation systems and their economic viability. The paper aims to analyze the economic viability of the adoption of a Home Automation system in different scenarios: the first one refers to the sole adoption of a Home Automation system, the second one concerns the adoption of the Home Automation system in addition to other energy efficiency technologies, while the third one also includes the installation of a PV plant. The economic simulations, based on a 200 m2house located in Northern Italy and built in the 1980's, performed using the traditional discounted cash flow methodologies (i.e. Net Present Value, Pay-Back Time and Internal Rate of Return), show that the adoption of the Home Automation system without other technologies for energy efficiency and the support of the electricity produced by RES - i.e. the first scenario - is the most profitable one.