Second Period Review Meeting for Energy in Time in Brussels November, 10th

The Energy in Time Project faced the second review meeting on November, 10th, to show the outcomes achieved during the last eighteen months up to September, 31st . The presentations conveyed by each partner of the EiT Consortium were done in the CDMA Building of the European Commission in Brussels centering on the exploitable results rather than on the work packages.

11300015The Communication Platform was developed at the beginning of the project, so at the meeting the attention was focused on the test site connection, especially at Faro airport, Portugal, one of the four deployed pilots under this project. This is the most complex site which allows us to explore and understand multiple aspects and develop different strategies for a proper data collection (OPC, specifically designed connectors for proprietary systems protocols) and transmission to the EiT aggregator in cloud ensuring the necessary security for access and data management. Other three pilot sites are different from the Portuguese airport due to their own characteristics (old vs. new buildings), business reasons (the way the Direction controls from their own BMS systems and a parallel existence of the EiT control and monitoring system) and geographic and climate zones (Finland, Romania and Italy).

The pilot sites require a constant adaptation to prove the results on an improved scientific basis to guarantee refined results and provide results for the building areas non covered by the EiT simulator. This includes such actions as site configuration, recalculation of the OPG (optimal plan generator) when significant differences in the current weather conditions are detected, adopt incremental approach MOD+OPG, and collaboration with the operators who work in the building.

11300016The tests done on the developed models, such as Simulation Model, MODC, Continuous Commissioning Model, Fault Detection and Diagnostics, Decision support tool, Centralized remote control – all of them in continuous calibration – evidenced that through the EiT system, the users can achieve an important energy consumption reduction – a minimum of 20% as per the latest results – and significant improvements like air control optimization in a restaurant area of the hotel which is one of the EiT pilot sites.

The EIT system is relied on the most efficient technological advances, for example, a real time self-learning controller which includes smart metering, and real-time fault detection. Data mining is another technique through which it is possible to correlate all the variables in a very efficient way and understand better energy consumption trends. The result is the useful information which states a value-added value to the project.

In addition, life demo were done to show the design and organization of each model included in the EiT system and the visible results for the user such as data in real time, analysis presented in graphs and tables reporting historical aggregated data.

A particular feature of the EiT project is that it takes into account different types of buildings of different ages and located in different places with particular weather conditions. The EiT system is also integrable with other systems such as booking platform at hotels or flights schedule at airports. The main target for any kind of building is that energy consumption efficiency must be aligned with the indoor conditions to provide comfortable environment to the building users. And this is what is achieved through the Energy in Time system.

The Consortium members concluded during this meeting that there are real results at this point and from now on they must potentiate dissemination that can be carried out through participation in conferences and events focused on solutions for energy-efficient buildings, cooperation with other projects and institutions increasing cluster work and publishing articles in different journals, platforms and so on. As a promotional material, the EiT Consortium agreed to prepare short videos with demo and interviews with the EiT members who will explain key points of the system to generate interest of future investors. This material will be completed with renewed printed material such as posters and flyers.

Finally, exploitation plan was presented to the Commission stressing the management aspects and fixing the plan for the next period.

The General Meeting of the EiT Consortium to debate the results of the research of the last 18 months of a conjoint work

The first day of a general meeting among all the members of the Energy in Time Project held on November, 9th, was quite a dense and practical day allowing the participants to evaluate the effort and outcomes and define the next steps to reach 100 per cent of the objectives set up for this project.

The result of the EiT project – a holistic solution based on the modern technologies for metering power consumption in buildings and suggesting improvements for its reduction – is not only a technical system but much more than that. The solution is characterized by a multi-user and multi-task approach. That is, it can be used by many different user groups, for example, executive managers, maintenance group, experts and so on, for various tasks such as reporting, analysis, monitoring, etc. The most relevant feature of this complex solution is that it is for decision support. The system has the capacity to generate recommendations to optimize energy efficiency in a building.

It is also worthy stressing that the developed modules are in continuous calibration in an attempt to adapt to the real conditions of any building and the weather of each place. The goal is to cover the whole building life cycle providing retrofitting solutions to the owner of the building. This challenging objective requires turning of data into a useful information for what data mining is applied to process and store a large amount of data. It is used as a complement to a decision support tool using statistical analysis and artificial intelligence. The outcomes will be, for instance, predictions of energy demand by the building in different period of times or optimization of the building performance after application of recommendations or controlling different sensors responsible for actions like heating, cooling, lightning, etc.

The concern of all the participants of the consortium was put on the additional value that the project can provide through its different modules and a general solution itself. Testing is a critical task and thus needs to be coordinated in a careful way increasing communication within the consortium. That is why the participants actively debated and agreed the control strategies for each pilot deployed in four different places.

Is Your Building a Perfect Place?

What is “perfect” in regard with a building? Well, the measured aspects are the automation, inclusion of digital technologies for energy consumption control and monitoring, low or zero gas emissions, and of course, indoor comfort conditions both for living and working. Your building will be perfect when efficiency and comfort are totally balanced. The goal is live in a living building, that is, try not only to maximize energy efficiency through reduction of energy loss and use of renewables, but also to create and keep environmental conditions inside the building which includes comfort and safety for the people who occupy it. That is why architects and engineers try to apply a holistic design approach for new constructions.

Siemens Building Technologies has recently started to focus on this combined target. The company remarks that it is not clear yet how to use digitalization and data to provide more comfort for the tenants of the building. But what is clear is that this aspect is as important as energy efficiency for which the picture is much more clear, since all relevant information and analysis have been carried out for many years already, so we can see now a real energy performance and what must be improved. Unsatisfied users, according to Mitterer C. et al. (2012), intervene in multiple systems which may cause waste of energy and sometimes even damage to building envelope components. Satisfied users, however, not only leave the systems work the way they are programmed, but also increase their effectiveness by working or recreation.

The challenging proposal is to integrate all the necessary services and functions of the building into a single management platform applying the Internet of Things both for efficiency and comfort. Sensors will help to determine non-occupied spaces to improve power consumption. Another interesting feature is that this centralized system can “cooperate” with other systems such as HVAC and ventilation to reach higher levels of indoor environment and energy efficiency.

Perfect buildings are truly high-performance because they are energy efficient and occupant friendly and they are possible when these two important features are treated together since they are very much related.

A “Nearly Zero Energy” Standard by 2050 in EU – Half-Dream, Half-Reality

Energy efficiency building, both for commercial and residential purposes, is not a new thing nor a passing trend but a strong commitment for improvement of energy efficiency in buildings and gas emissions produced by them. Governments of many countries worldwide already identified cost-effective potential for implementing energy saving measures.

Following this line, a new request to the European Commission comes from the building industry claiming that not only the new constructions must fit the energy efficiency standards, but also the existing ones, three-quarters of which are totally inefficient. The deadline suggested by them is 2050 when all existing buildings should retrofit to a “nearly zero energy” standard by their transformation into sustainable elements of the energy system of this century. The goal is to provide a clear vision of this important question and involve all the citizens and institutions regardless their social role into complying with the Paris Agreement.

This initiative will be possible with the explicit support from the EU unlocking investment in the building and construction sector and ensuring higher growth for the companies. The outcomes will be visible and attractive, according to the representatives of the sector – much more comfortable, safe, affordable and also sustainable homes for European citizens.

‘Nearly zero’ standards are similar to those outlined by the World Green Building Council’s project – Advancing Net Zero –  with the target to make all the world’s buildings ‘net zero’ of emissions by 2050. This project is supported by many different countries, such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, South Africa and Sweden.

The European Commission must define buildings’ energy performance and financing together with targets, which might be even more ambitious than the current ones (achieve a reduction of 20% in energy use by 2020), for energy efficiency for 2030 as the first milestone. Another important element in this scheme is financing that can be run through ‘energy efficiency’ mortgages for homebuyers or tenants when carrying out eventual transformation within their properties. This a so-called “pan-European mortgage financing system” to ensure affordability of sustainable homes for the European citizens.

Let’s remind that we can produce our own renewable electricity (according to the recent Dutch study, there are 264 million people in Europe who can do it), and this is what is highly encouraged to comply with energy efficiency standards by 2050. The countries like Sweden, Germany and Netherlands are already leading this initiative, but it must be extended to other countries that will need to readjust their tax policy and guarantee prices on the energy market for electricity surplus sale by households.

Sources:

European Commission Must Be More Ambitious in its Energy Efficiency Targets Says Building Sector

Call for Nearly Zero Energy standard for retrofitting European buildings by 2050