The smart home market is on the rise and will only expand in the coming six years, according to the latest figures from Strategy Analytics. Last year, consumers spent about 17 billion dollars on smart home applications worldwide. In 2022, they’ll spend about 50 billion dollars. The explanation for this exponential growth? CES 2017 made it clear that smart gadgets such as Amazon’s 'Alexa' have a massive fan base. But there is more to it:...
Home automation has made great leaps in the last few years. It should come as no surprise, then, that more and more consumers are introducing smart technology into their homes. But not everyone is on board just yet. Some consumers still associate smart homes with a hefty price tag, cumbersome installation – including renovations – and complex instruction manuals. They couldn’t be more wrong, though, because any architect or expert on...
Is your company planning to move to new premises? As of January 1, 2017, businesses are required to (partially) generate green power for each new company building, using their green energy source of choice. The vast majority of Flemish companies chooses to ignore wind turbines, water turbines, geothermal and biomass, opting for solar panels instead. A notable trend, but certainly not a surprising one. Not only are solar panels the most...
Once again, there’s a new wind blowing through the energy landscape. Following a proposal by Flemish Energy Minister Bart Tommelein, smart meters will be made compulsory for every Flemish home in 2019. Citizens cannot apply for a smart meter yet, but the government is already rolling them out here and there as part of a pilot project.
Contrary to what the term suggests, however, smart meters actually aren’t that ‘smart’. For one, most people...
Earlier this year, Greenpeace published Clicking Clean: Who is Winning the Race to Build a Green Internet. Focusing on energy management, the annual report ranks various internet companies according to their investments in renewable energy. The results are surprising, to say the least. Befitting multinational internet companies in the year 2017, Apple, Facebook and Google all achieved high scores. Quite a few other well-known...