Energy In Time Year Roundup – CAVERION

Energy In Time consortium partners highlight their main achievements in 2015 and tell us about their prospects in 2016.

Jukka Heino:

Caverion’s year 2015 in the Energy in Time project was versatile. From the work package 4, the task 4.1 Continuous commissioning methodology began to be on finish line. As a task leader Caverion was pleased to see good progress on that task. The final deliverable 4.4 was returned on summer. Major work load was put also to energy audits of the Sanomatalo and Levi in the task 7.1 which were finalized during summer. Towards the end of the year the need of installations of the Finnish demo sites, Sanomatalo and Levi, were studied. In Sanomatalo the installations started in December. In those installations there were installed multiple electrical meters and energy meters in the pilot area. Other smaller activities, like Data in demos in Sanomatalo were done in May and the survey of the HVAC maintenance were done in December. Also the data transfer via OPC connections needed attention through the year.

At the beginning of the 2016 the installations in Sanomatalo will continue. Also the survey of the need of installations in Levi continues and probably installations to Levi will start early in 2016. The Energy in Time M30 meeting will be held in Levi in April of 2016. Caverion is responsible to organize this meeting and will happily present the Finnish Lapland to other partners. The main object for Caverion in 2016 is to have good start on the task 7.3 Monitoring and performance evaluation. This is important task of the whole Energy in Time project. Caverion will start planning this task early in spring, the actual task starts in July.

 

Energy In Time consortium partners highlight their main achievements in 2015 and tell us about their prospects in 2016

Benoit Vinot and Mathieu Thorel:

During the first semester of 2015, CSTB and ACCIONA have produced a BIM of the main terminal building of Faro Airport. This building is one of the four study cases retained by Energy In Time project to apply and assess different innovative energy regulation strategies.

The elaboration of this BIM, now finished, was a genuine challenge due to the size of the building: 75 000m² on 7 floors, 19 000 building elements modeled, 566 allocated areas. Two types of BIM were generated then merged: one dedicated to the architectural and structural elements (made by CSTB team), one other focusing on HVAC systems modeling (realized by ACCIONA team). All this work was done thanks to the strong collaboration of ANA partner, the facility manager of the airport, who brought many data such as: plans and drawings, technical datasheets and a lot of pictures. All available technical data (such as thermal transmittance of external walls and windows) have been included into the BIM to facilitate future technical assessments by centralizing the technical data in this single interoperable model.

In 2016, this BIM will play an important role in the quantification of energy/economic/environmental performances of different energy retrofitting strategies that will be modeled and assessed in the decision support method developed alongside the innovative energy regulation strategies.

 

Constructing a sustainable work environment

Cisco Canada has just been awarded the CoreNet REmmy Innovative Workplace Award, for facilities of more than 20,000 sq. ft., in an award that rewards innovations in the Canadian real estate sector.  Among the factors that carry most weight for the organizers is the sustainability factor, which already constitutes a need for any innovation project in key sectors such as the one that we are dealing with.

When Cisco had the need to move to a new location, they made the decision to make its facilities a showcase of innovation, and of sustainability that gave its customers an idea of the products and services that the company offers by becoming leaders in environmental social responsibility and work flexibility.

Workers choose how they want to interact with their job, and technology comes into play as a facilitator role for the task. The design changed as the construction progressed in order to accommodate new technologies such as Power Over Ethernet, which allows power supply to be provided via regular LAN infrastructure. The construction team had to show a great deal of flexibility that allowed them to undertake such changes on the original design reflected in the plans. In change, we get a highly efficient system that allows us to have a smart power supply because the devices can be switched on and off using existing protocols, such as SNMP for network management.

Cisco and the CoreNet REmmy Innovative Workplace awards demonstrate once more that the future and innovation walk hand in hand with sustainability and energy efficiency.

Read more about the winning teams on the CoreNet Canada website: http://canada.corenetglobal.org/remmyawards

 

 

Virtual Energy Advisor uses gamification in order to promote energy savings

Energy savings can be achievable through different ways. The new application Virtual Energy Advisor tries to reach it by involving the user in a game-oriented way.  Through cooperation and competition, the application motivates the users in order to achieve the energy efficiency goals.

As if it were a video game, Virtual Energy Advisor uses a system of individual challenges which provides the user with his/her progresses in energy efficiency, it also sets goals and share the achievements to social networks. This application also offers an on line video game-oriented modality, since it allows you to compare individual results of each player with nearby participants. Comparing our energy efficiency results with our friends and neighbors will let us know if our energy efficiency habits are as efficient as we expect.

Medals, badges and points are also present to this gamification: they are one more element to motivate users.

The application has arrived to some pilot regions where the use of this application and energy savings techniques are being promoted. Those regions includes Guipuzkoa and Barcelona, where the application is developed.

Virtual Energy Advisor is based on the concept of gamification, it is proving to be an efficient tool in order to promote the social and responsible behavior towards the environment. The use of games, social networks and the proper analysis of the people behavior are opening new fields that those who encourages energy efficiency will not ignore.

 

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