We solicit two types of original submissions:

  • regular papers for oral presentation (8 pages);
  • poster papers describing work-in-progress (2 pages);

All accepted regular, poster and demo papers will be included in the workshop proceedings and the ACM digital library.

Successful papers will clearly demonstrate how much energy is reduced by the authors’ contribution, either through real-world results or credible simulation and analysis of an energy problem. Many papers should consider the entire energy system, including any effects on occupant behaviors, production efficiency, peak load and smart grid architectures, sustainability, pollutants, and total energy usage.

We are particularly interested in contributions related to:

  • Increase energy awareness and reduce consumption by leveraging on sensing systems, social networking, smart phones, novel visualization, and various forms of media to convey relevant information to users;
  • Systems that can influence building occupant behavior towards a more parsimonious usage of electricity, gas, heating, water, etc.;
  • Sensing and actuation of electrical loads in residential, commercial and industrial settings
  • Novel wireless sensor networks and sensing applications that enhance  building energy efficiency and meet occupant comfort;
  • Control of alternative energy sources aiming at an increase of production efficacy;
  • Use of distributed generation, renewable sources and energy storage in buildings;
  • Model, simulate, optimize, and control heating, cooling, lighting, ventilation, water usage and other energy flows in buildings and surrounding spaces;
  • Innovative approaches to building control using embedded devices and new architectures (e.g., agent-based systems);
  • Novel techniques to reduce building energy consumption, electricity demand during utility peak periods, or energy costs;
  • Create innovative tools to model and visualize energy expenditure and production (from, e.g., solar panels, wind turbines);
  • Integrate sensor-based systems to improve grid operation and energy distribution (electricity, gas, water);
  • Systems that integrate buildings with the emerging smart grid to provide demand response and ancillary services;
  • Sensor systems for the identification of appliances in industrial, commercial and home environments, which can be used to measure or estimate the energy usage and to predict future demands;
  • Emerging communication standards for the collection of data from smart meters and the control of HVAC systems.
  • User studies, human factors, or user feedback in building energy management

Call for papers here (pdf)

Submission instructions

Submitted papers must be unpublished and must not be currently under review for any other publication.
Paper submissions should be no more than 8 pages and must follow a double column format.
All figures, appendices, and references must fit within this limit. Paper reviewing is single-blind and submissions should list author names on the front page.

Paper formatting instructions

Your submission must be in PDF with all fonts embedded. We do not handle other formats such as Microsoft Word. Whatever text processor or formatter you use to write your paper (LaTeX, Microsoft Word, FrameMaker, etc.), please convert the output to PDF before submission. Your submission must be correctly formatted to fit on U.S. “Letter” size paper, which is 8.5 inches wide by 11 inches tall. Please, be sure you have 1 inch margins on all edges (top, bottom, left, and right) of each page. The font size must be at least 10 points (smaller font is allowed for references, figure captions and footnotes).

Papers that do not meet the size and formatting requirements will not be reviewed. Accepted submissions will be available on the ACM digital library at least one week before the workshop.

Paper template:

You can use the latex template in this zip file to format your paper.

Please do not modify any spacing parameters.

All papers must be submitted through the BuildSys submission site: http://buildsys13.cs.umass.edu

Important Dates

  • Paper/Poster submission deadline: August 6, 2013 (firm; no extensions)
  • Notification: September 15, 2013
  • Camera Ready: September 27, 2013
  • Workshop and Demo Session: November 13-14, 2013