Different technologies for the production and storage of energy are available. The use of renewable energy sources can have both practical, economic, and environmental advantages. However, as renewable energy sources may not be continuously available or in sync with the consumption of energy, the need for energy storage solutions arises. Each building has its characteristic conditions with respect to the availability of renewable energy sources and energy requirements. Moreover, the different types of energy production technologies have different characteristic properties like space requirements, power capacity, investment, and operation cost, etc. Similarly, the energy storage solutions have different energy efficiencies, power and energy capacities, space requirements, and long-term energy loss. Finally, all these energy solutions may lead to different fire hazards that need to be handled in accordance with the building and the environment where the technology will be used. In this report, a short introduction to the following energy production and storage technologies is given: Solar, wind, electric generators, biomass, batteries, hydrogen, thermal, pressurised air, and flywheel rotational energy. Each of these technologies has different characteristics and fire hazards that are mentioned. Smart technology is here defined as any device that can collect information on its environment, evaluate the collected information, and provide some type of output based on the evaluation. A long list of possible input parameters, processing possibilities, and output signals or actions are possible, and any combination of these can be implemented, making a plethora of smart technologies possible. Some of these smart technologies can have an impact on fire safety in buildings. A well-known example is a smoke alarm where the signal from a smoke sensor is compared to a set threshold level that activates an audible alarm. Some example systems are also mentioned to show how different combinations of these solutions can be implemented to cover a specific energy requirement in a building.
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