Improving Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings and Smart Communities

Demand side management (DSM) is seen as promising, cost-effective measure to cope with high shares of intermittent renewable energy in the electricty grid system. As the regulatory framework in Europe is changing in favour of opening up new market opportunities for such measures, it raises the question which DSM potentials are effectively available. Besides the DSM potential in the industry sector, which is already addressed in many countries, the information on the DSM potentials and market acceptance in the services and residential sector is scarce. In order to properly evaluate such potentials and their impact, quality data is of utmost importance to understand the barriers and drivers for the future market development. Therefore, an empirical study regarding the DSM potential in the services sector is conducted to collect firsthand data from potential DSM users.

In this paper we present the findings of the empirical study, describing the results for the tertiary sector of the following European countries: the UK, Poland, Italy and Switzerland. Our study includes the subsectors retail, wholesale trading, hotels, restaurants, office-type companies (privately held), public administration, public companies and services. The collected data is important and highly necessary as it remains currently unknown which facilities have already been included in DSM-markets and what willingness or readiness is dormant in services companies, to govern over specific facilities. The data-set and the results of the study were collected within the EU REFLEX project [The project REFLEX has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 691685 and the Swiss State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI)] and will be used as basis for further modelling exercises, to analyse and evaluate the development towards a low-carbon energy system with focus on flexibility options in the EU.

Our paper is based on a big size commercial building in Romania, in relation to the energy consumption monitoring, to the building energy performances and to the monitoring data analysis. It contains data which will allow us to compare an existing building with the retail industry norms in terms of the building energy consumption and energy costs. The building management system (BMS) is based on SAIA Burgess Controllers with IP interface, with input/output modules both analog and digital and remote I/O modules with S-NET interface collecting signals integrated in the entire building.

Based on the monitoring and data analysis, the paper’s objectives are to present few action plans to implement them into this kind of buildings to achieve a better building energy efficiency. Additionally, to the main outcomes, the reduced energy costs obtained from the applied measures to improve the building energy efficiency building, there are mentioned other benefits arisen from the energy efficiency investments in building, like reducing energy use for space heating/cooling and water heating, improving interior thermal comfort, enhancing the property value, reducing the operational requirements and reducing the electrical energy for lighting, office machinery and other appliances.

Some recommendations are provided to control better and efficiently the building energy use and its consumption and reducing the avoidable waste while providing to the customers the services to achieve better interior thermal comfort conditions.

The energy efficiency prominence in Lebanon has undoubtedly witnessed a significant change in the past decade. The National Energy Efficiency Action Plan—NEEAP 2016–2020 sets the road map for Lebanon towards achieving its energy efficiency (EE) and environmental objectives, and includes a number of EE initiatives targeting the different sectors of the Lebanese economy. Among these initiatives is the continuous support of the Central Bank of Lebanon (BdL) through a national financing mechanism (National Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Action—NEEREA), a program that has achieved a breakthrough in the sector since its launch in 2010, and has successfully catalyzed the EE market in an unprecedented way, thus putting Lebanon a step forward towards its target of achieving a demand growth control in order to save a minimum of 5% of the total demand in 2020 as per the Policy Paper for the Electricity Sector published by the Ministry of Energy and Water in 2010, and a 10% reduction in power demand through energy efficiency in 2030 compared to the demand under the business as usual scenario as per Lebanon’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) is the German and international knowledge platform for sustainable building and provides the world’s most advanced sustainable building certification system. Its aim is the planning and assessment of sustainable buildings and districts. With more than 2800 pre-certified or certified projects worldwide and as a market leader in Germany, the DGNB can look back on more than 10 years of experience in fostering and certifying sustainable buildings and districts.

Since its very beginning, the ambitious assessments have always been based on the entire life cycle of a building, including both embodied and operational carbon emissions and applying to new buildings as well as to renovations of existing buildings. In order to support a significant contribution from the construction sector to limit global warming and in order to make the implementation of the Paris Agreement of 2015 measurable within certified projects, the DGNB has developed a framework for “carbon-neutral buildings and sites.” The new framework consists of the three elements carbon accounting rules, carbon disclosure rules and carbon management rules.

The new framework offers a wide range of possible applications. It can, for instance, have a possible positive impact on DGNB certification outcomes, offer a reliable basis for decision-makers regarding the aspect of green financing, help to establish appropriate regulatory instruments or serve for educational purposes.

The framework has been published as a preview version in May 2018 and is applicable for a testing phase since July 2018.

Sustainable energy management system is an important prerequisite for making informed choices about which buildings to retrofit, choosing from the entire existing building stock. However, the system itself does not say anything about the economic potential of the retrofit, what economic methods to use for appraising buildings and what indicators to look at if the aim is the highest monetary savings. This paper demonstrates to local and national governments as owners of public buildings; (1) how they can use existing data from energy management information system (EMIS) to achieve highest monetary savings; and (2) it is economically justified to implement EMIS to benefit from the highest monetary savings when choosing buildings for retrofit.

The hypothesis was tested on a stock of 602 public buildings from Zagreb, Croatia. Through an Intelligent Energy Efficiency project ZagEE, Zagreb city administration chose 87 buildings for energy retrofit. The estimated economic savings were compared to a scenario where optimal 87 buildings would be chosen. The difference in savings justifies the additional cost of performing energy audits of the entire building stock. Although monetary savings are only one of the reasons for choosing the order of buildings to be retrofitted, the authors argue that additional savings can result in such greater savings that additional buildings can then be retrofitted, and other objectives achieved. The intention is to raise awareness of the savings potential that is exposed when investing into an efficient EMIS and properly using its results to decide which buildings to retrofit.

The building sector is one of the main indicators of environmental and economic sustainability because in the European Union (EU), it is responsible for around 40% of air pollution and 36% of final consumption.

Therefore, new building processes are aimed, above all, at environmental requalification with reconversion of the built environment, focusing on technological quality to achieve a 30% improvement in energy efficiency by 2030.

The objectives are process innovation and energy efficiency in construction, in accordance with the latest European Commission (EC) regulations and decisions, with achievement of a 35% share of energy consumed in the EU being obtained from renewable sources.

The performance capacity of the systems and products, with durability of the components, is aimed at building quality in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 8402 and ecosustainable control of energy production, with incentives for companies adopting smart energy solutions.

Innovative methodologies involve the application of efficient energy systems through the use of distributed generation, cogeneration and trigeneration with consumption control by sophisticated digital systems.

This chapter highlights new projects integrating design of efficient plants and new models for building with efficient systems and self-consumption of electrical energy for consumers and participation in the renewable energy community, with use of concentrated solar photovoltaic technology for energy self-production, solar thermal systems, and more.

These projects integrate passive systems and efficient double- and triple-skin architectural envelopes; sustainable and intelligent heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems; and smart materials with ecodesign. The challenges are environmental protection, reductions in CO₂ emissions, and containment of global warming to 2 °C, with innovation in new building processes that highlight technological quality in architecture, using renewable energy sources.

Thanks to EU program LIFE, an innovative approach has been designed and soon will be completed in the city of ROME, within EUR district, with the project LIFE-Diademe. Today, the IoT technology (Internet of Things) makes easy to install, on each lighting pole, low-cost sensors, able to detect luminance, traffic flow and weather conditions. All these parameters can be measured in a more accurate way and, above all, in a wide urban area. Within the LIFE-Diademe project, 110 devices have been installed on 110 lighting poles and 890 more will be connected by the end of 2018 to measure, in a selected area, relevant parameters for Adaptive Lighting. To obtain a wide sampling of typical road lighting situation, the testing is considering urban contests representing different type of traffic: residential, offices, shops, Public Administration, University, etc.

On-site expert systems are analysing streets data and, thanks to the three basic evaluated parameters, they are adapting street lighting levels in real time mode: measurement and dimming time is being executed every minute.

First data about behaviour of the system are showing an approximate energy saving of about 30% compared to pre-programmed dimming cycles, and 50% compared to no dimming. These data are comparable to other Adaptive Lighting installations—designed according to standards—where the most significant result represents that in most of the urban roads, for 90% of the time, traffic flow is lower than 10% of nominal road capacity.

Thanks to new IoT concepts, data about air quality, noise and post inclination are also being collected from each lighting point.

The LIFE-Diademe project experience will run for 1 year, to collect a reasonable set of data. After this period, a new lighting measurement campaign will be performed and, consequently, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) are being carried out, in order to assess results, in terms of energy saving, safety, waste reduction, and, finally, sustainability.

The need for rational energy consumption and measured use of resources dictates a new approach to designing, constructing, and renovating existing buildings. This paper focuses on one of the main energy consumers within the built environment, office buildings.

In order for office buildings to comply with the targets set for 2020 by the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, extended refurbishment of the existing building stock is required, combined with utilizing renewable energy technologies. Although there are various strategies available for renewable energy generation in urban environments, facade BIPV integration offers a great potential of generating electricity, despite the limited roof space of multistory buildings.

The case of buildings in Southeast Europe is of special importance, as due to the prevailing climatic conditions, cooling loads are usually higher than heating loads, making retrofitting a more complex problem than simply increasing the insulation levels.

For the scope of this paper, the facade redesigning of a typical nine-story office building in Greece is examined as a sustainable option towards transforming it into a nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB). In order to achieve greater energy performance, an energy simulation model is developed in EnergyPlus and TRNSYS, to calculate the energy savings and electricity production through the proposed retrofitting options. The BIPV systems are estimated to produce electricity that covers approximately 50% of the building’s total annual energy demand and upgrade its aesthetics and architectural form. Moreover, various orientation scenarios are evaluated, to better understand the behavior and retrofitting potential of offices scattered throughout the urban environment of Southeast Europe.

Electric lighting is one of the major factors for energy consumption of buildings. The European Directive 2010/31/EU states that from 31 December 2020 all new buildings will have to be nearly-Zero Energy Buildings, thus improving electric lighting energy performance is a key issue. The article presents a study and energy figures of power density and electric lighting annual consumptions for different types of buildings, office, commercial and educational, in the northern European country Estonia with the scope to quantify energy savings when using different types of high-efficiency luminaires, occupancy and dimming controls, lighting groups, and daylight contribution. The study has been conducted in relation to the energy performance regulation for new buildings in Estonia. The scope is to develop methods for electric lighting and daylight calculations to be used in compliance assessment with energy requirements. Using different validated software for electric light and daylight simulations the study analyzes three cases for office buildings, single office, open office and meeting room, and one case for both commercial and educational buildings. Results show that average installed power density can be as low as 3.17 W/m² for office rooms, 3.22 W/m² for commercial buildings and 2.09 W/m² for classrooms. The reduction of energy consumption comparing tabulated values can be up 93.3% for office rooms. Also for commercial and educational buildings energy saving are consistent, up to 72.2% and 87.2% respectively. The article presents as well electric light and daylight model specifications and parameters and the different control settings and relative performance.

A European Commission-funded Horizon 2020 project named ALDREN (ALliance for Deep RENovation in buildings) https://​aldren.​eu/​ aims to establish the business case for deep renovation. The 30 month programme which started in November 2017 intends to encourage investment and accelerate the movement towards a nearly zero energy non-residential building stock across the EU, as targeted by 2050 to meet Paris Agreement commitments. The back-bone of ALDREN is the EVCS (European common Voluntary Certification Scheme) (Ribeiro serrenho T, Rivas Calvete S and Bertoldi P Cost-benefit analysis of the EVCS implementation, EUR - Scientific and Technical Research Reports, 2017) which will be used to track the deep renovation process. This paper describes the processes and tools being developed to close the gap between calculated and measured energy performance (EP):

The paper concludes that nearly zero energy performance targets can become measured outcomes, where driven by client leadership and wider team buy-in, and using the power of advanced simulation of HVAC systems to optimise design and ensure operation is aligned with the design intent.

Investment in the upgrade of public infrastructure such as public buildings and street lighting provides high energy saving potential. Although it is a cost-effective greenhouse gas mitigation solution, budgetary constraints of its owners, who are often municipalities, lead to low refurbishment rates. To overcome this challenge, innovative financing solutions should be developed to attract other investors and reduce high up-front investment costs for the public budget.

The paper presents selected results of research, which aims to identify and suggest suitable models to upgrade public buildings and street lighting in Germany. It reviews financing models, which exist in Germany and neighbouring countries, including self-financing, debt-financing, third party financing, and public–private partnerships. The chapter further analyses these models using a common framework. In particular, it provides the overview of each model, identifies the projects to which it can be applied, specifies its advantages and disadvantages, as well as jurisdictions that have applied the model. The paper concludes with recommendations for German decision-makers on finding and implementing a suitable financing model.

The identification of techniques aimed at a rational use of electric power has nowadays become more important than the production of energy itself. One of the causes for this is the progressive saturation of the Italian electricity grid, which is increasingly subject to connection requests, mainly due to the development of plants which make use of renewable energy sources.

In order to reduce the building’s energy costs during the summer season taking into account the user comfort, in this work we propose a new approach based on Pareto multi-objective optimization combined with a simulator developed in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The electrical consumption of the entire building is taken into consideration with the aim of air-conditioning it. The goal is to find, the day before, the optimal hourly scheduling of the set points which have to be applied the next day, taking into consideration all external conditions, namely the weather conditions and the hourly energy price. To achieve this objective, the control variables we change are the room temperature set points and the flow water temperature set point. As required by the UNI EN ISO 7730:2006 standard (http://​store.​uni.​com/​catalogo/​index.​php/​uni-en-iso-7730-2006.​html), comfort measurement has been calculated with the PPD (Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied) index.

Different scenarios have been investigated. The results show that there is an average of 15% potential cost saving, while maintaining a high level of comfort. Experimentation has been carried out by simulating a real office building in Italy, and the comparisons are shown regarding the actual settings applied to it.

The main stakeholders in a retrofitting process for public and commercial buildings are the Lessor, Users, Investors, and Developers. They all have different market and personal interests, which need to be taken into account when developing optimal, affordable, and successful projects. These stakeholders will consider technical, energy, legal, and economic aspects of a holistic retrofitting solution that fit into their interest chain both from an individual and from their shared perspective. Therefore, a value-driven process has to be set up to underline the whole retrofitting project.

In practice, stakeholders need to define and clearly state a common goal and retrofitting strategy, as well as to set up a shared management to design and implement the project. Behind the retrofitting strategy, there needs to be a business case for the project that should include not only energy savings but other factors, so-called co-impacts, such as the increased market value of the property.

The main drivers of retrofitting public and commercial buildings typically include cost savings and improvement of the building state. Typical technical solutions are energy efficiency improvement, reduction of energy demand, and reduction of building related emissions. However, it is no longer possible to implement a retrofitting project without considering the comfort level determined by indoor air quality and thermal comfort, but also by the functional, aesthetical and environmental factors.

The implementation process developed by the EcoShopping^∗ project can be considered as a model for achieving such a holistic retrofit implementation.

Nowadays, greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase with the consequent climate changes. Energy consumption of buildings strongly affects atmospheric pollution, therefore for a sustainable development it is necessary to adopt energy efficiency policies combined with low-carbon technologies. In particular, the use of district heating (DH) has environmental and economic advantages in energy production and distribution for space heating consumption. In this paper, the combined effect of DH expansion with different buildings retrofit scenarios using a GIS-based model is proposed for a more sustainable city.

This methodology is applied to the DH network of the city of Torino and, energy savings hypotheses were analyzed, evaluating different energy saving trends starting from the current one with existing policies. A GIS-based methodology has been developed with bottom-up and top-down approaches; then two future energy savings scenarios have been hypothesized. Energy retrofit measures have been applied to the most critical areas with low potential of heat distribution; in a second phase, to the whole area connected to the DH network. The results showed that intervening in the critical areas only +5% of potential buildings can be connected to the existing DH network (standard retrofit) while this percentage could grow up to +25% with advanced buildings retrofit. On the other hand, intervening on the whole city, there is a considerable reduction of consumptions and the connectable quota of buildings to the DH network reaches +42% with standard retrofit and +82% with advanced retrofit scenario with an optimization of energy distribution as well.