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Energy
Building
The supply of energy to households, public buildings and services accounts for the majority of GHG emissions in the majority of municipalities. Municipal Energy Saving Systems represent punctual solutions to optimise energy consumption.
Affordable And Clean Energy
Sustainable Cities And Communities
Description
For over a decade, European municipalities have been establishing initiatives, strategies and action plans to increase the energy efficiency of private and communal infrastructure. Municipalities of EU member states, enforced by the EU Directive on energy efficiency, must work collaboratively to ensure that by 2020 and 2030, an energy efficiency of 20% and 32.5% are met, respectively.
Initiatives, such as the Covenant of Mayors, have been launched to foster commitment towards energy and climate targets. Signatories voluntarily agreed to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources. To achieve this, participating municipalities drafted and submitted a Sustainability Energy Action Plan (SEAP), defining their energy-saving and climate measures. More than 6000 municipalities have developed and approved a SEAP since 2008; however, when compared to the total number of municipalities across Europe, there is still a long way to go.
It has been identified that a municipality's building stock represents the single largest potential for energy savings. It is also expected that more than two-thirds of the world's population will live in urban areas by 2050. Therefore, this solution aims to ease the conception and implementation of municipal energy-saving measures.
Problems to be solved
Fossil fuel consumption
Carbon emissions
Detrimental urban air quality
Wasted energy
Unreliable energy supply
Low energy monitoring
Products offering these functions
IRPopt (Integrated Resource Planning and Optimization)
The techno-economic mathematical optimization framework IRPopt (Integrated Resource Planning and Optimization) supports decision makers of municipal energy utilities as well as the public administration regarding future portfolio management
Local authorities may be tempted to opt for projects improving energy efficiency with short paybacks. However, this approach will not capture the majority of potential savings available through energy retrofits. Instead, it is recommended that all profitable options are included, especially those which yield a rate of return higher than the interest rate of the investment capital. This approach will translate into greater savings over the long term. Too often, quick paybacks on investments mean that organisations do not pay attention to "lifecycle costing".
Life cycle costs are the total cost of ownership over the life of an energy-saving system, such as: planning, design, construction and acquisition, operations, maintenance, renewal and rehabilitation, depreciation and cost of finance and replacement or disposal. Payback time should be compared with the lifespan of the goods to be financed. For instance, a 15-year payback time should not be considered a long period of time when it comes to a building with a lifespan of 50-60 years.
Legal Requirements
Relevant legal directives at the EU and national levels.
An energy performance-based business model proposes a partnership between customers and Energy Servicing Companies (ESCOs) to develop energy-saving measures. EPC’s can be executed in two forms: through shared-savings, or through a guaranteed-savings scheme. In a shared-savings EPS, an ESCO is remunerated based on the project’s generated energy saving and the fee paid by the customer reimburses the capital costs of the project. In a guaranteed savings EPC, the ESCO takes on a technical risk, by guaranteeing a saving percentage on the customers' energy bill. If the agreed savings are not achieved, the ESCO is required to reimburse the customer the difference between the actual savings and the agreed-upon savings. The customer finances the measure completely, relying on the performance promised by the ESCO.
An EPC is well suited for large-scale projects, especially in the public sector, because of high transaction costs and long payback times. Usually, the private sector is less attracted to contracts with long payback times. This means that, in order to establish a contract in the private sector, ESCOs should focus on the implementation of ECMs with rapid return on investment. Difficulties in setting up an energy baseline make it harder for the ESCO to predict energy savings and the measurement and verification process needed to follow up on the project results can be costly (Warget, 2011).
In the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) business model, the ESCO has complete control of the energy-saving measure. They build, deploy, and operate the project through a given contracted period of time. At the end of the contract, the ESCO transfers the installation/system to the customer.
During the contracted period of time, the ESCO is in control of the energy-saving measure and a fee is charged to the customer for the service delivered. This way, the ESCO investment and operational costs are covered by the fees. The BOOT model is similar to a loan made by the ESCO to the customer, which also includes energy management during the contract period.
In a Chauffage Business Model, the ESCO takes over complete responsibility for providing the energy services (e.g. space heat, lighting, motive power, etc.) to the customer. As a form of outsourcing energy management, Chauffage is typically used in municipalities where the energy supply market is competitive.
The ESCO assumes the responsibility for providing the agreed energy service for a cost lower than the previous service or for a more efficient service for the same cost. The more efficient and cost-effective it can supply energy, the greater earnings the ESCO will have. Chauffage contracts give the strongest incentive to ESCOs to provide services in an efficient way. The fee paid by the municipality under a Chauffage arrangement is calculated on the basis of its existing energy bill minus a percentage saving (often in the range of 5-10%). Thus, the municipality is guaranteed an immediate savings relative to its current bill.
Chauffage contracts are typically quite long (20-30 years) and the ESCO provides all the associated maintenance and operation during the contract. Chauffage contracts are very useful whenever the customer wants to outsource facility services and investment.
Stakeholder Mapping
Which stakeholders need to be considered (and how) regarding the planning and implementation of this Solution?
Stakeholder Map for a municipal energy saving system (BABLE, 2021)
City Context
What supporting factors and characteristics of a city is this Solution fit for? What factors would ease implementation?
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE, 2020) has listed seven recommendations to implement and adopt energy savings systems:
Continue harmonisation of building energy codes by ensuring comprehensive coverage of all types of buildings.
Define national energy efficiency target, which is to be based on primary (or final) energy consumption, primary (or final) energy savings, or on energy intensity.
Continue strengthening requirements for insulation, ventilation and technical installations.
Give more attention to the airtightness of the building envelope
Ensure building codes include requirements for air conditioning, lighting, use of renewable energy sources, and natural lighting
Make mandatory requirement for inspection of boilers and air-conditioning systems to improve quality and precision of energy performance certification in multi-family buildings
Follow a holistic approach in building energy codes based on building energy performance requirements (heat, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, etc.)
Introduce or strengthen quality assurance measures, especially during the early stage of energy performance certification.
Requirements for certifying experts should be harmonised
Certifier needs to be physically present on-site
Quality check procedure of energy performance certification should be harmonised
Development of centralised energy performance certification databases and digitalisation of certification process
Challenges of infrastructure energy performance data collection on energy use and the existing gaps should be priority areas for research.
Establish or strengthen proper electronic monitoring system of compliance, enforcement and quality control processes to ensure compliance with international building energy codes and standards.
Define measures to ensure that materials and products used in construction are subject to rigorous quality control to meet energy efficiency requirements, to maintain resistance of buildings to local environmental loads, and to ensure they do not threaten safety of people and property.
Government Initiatives
What efforts and policies are local/national public administrations undertaking to help further and support this Solution?
European Green Deal: In October 2020, the Commission presented its renovation wave strategy, as part of the European Green Deal. The strategy contains an action plan with concrete regulatory, financing and enabling measures to boost building renovation. Its objective is to at least double the annual energy renovation rate of buildings by 2030 and to foster deep renovation.
Energy Efficiency Obligation Scheme: Created as a result of the EE Directive, these schemes require energy companies to achieve energy savings at the level of 1.5% of their annual energy sales to final consumers by implementing energy efficiency measures. Alternatively, countries may introduce other policy measures to stimulate energy savings. EEOSs target energy suppliers, retailers and distributors as these groups are best placed to identify and carry out energy savings with their customers.
Energy Performance Certificates: Energy performance certificates provide information to consumers on buildings they plan to purchase or rent. They include an energy performance rating and recommendations for cost-effective improvements of the energy performance of a building or building unit.
Data and Standards
Which relevant standards, data models and software are relevant to or required for this Solution?
LEED – Leadership in energy and Environmental Design
BREEAM – Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method
German Energy Saving Ordinance - EnEV
The creation of this solution has been supported by EU funding
Use Cases
Explore real-life examples of implementations of this Solution.
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The study "Renewable Power-to-Heat in Hajnówka" illustrates the possibility and necessity of converting the fossil heating network of the Polish town of Hajnówka to renewable energies.
Connecta VLCi: 194 smart municipal buildings and facilities
The project proposes a more modern and efficient management of up to 194 municipal buildings and facilities through a smart city platform where the buildings are integrated and all the information about them such as pollution, temperature, humidity, energy consumption, etc. is provided.
The project converted all stops into Smart Stops, preventing unnecessary energy consumption by air conditioners. By installing remote management devices in the air conditioners and other systems, energy-saving measures have been implemented.
In former cotton mill rental areas, a smart heat management system employs intelligent thermostats connected to a local energy management system, allowing tenants to control heating through a mobile app and reduce heat-related emissions by automatically turning off heat supply in unused areas.
Better Energy Flexibility with Radio Base Station Batteries
The Municipality of Barcelona tested using the back up batteries of radio base stations, to increase grid flexibility and provide greater stability. In this way, the stations can be disconnected from the grid on demand and use the batteries instead.
A Virtual Power Plant energy management platform, providing the capability to city stakeholders to actively manage Distributed Energy Resource (generation, storage and load) from a single platform.
Within the GrowSmarter project."Smart local thermal districts" is part of the building refurbishment in Ca l’Alier, which combines on-site electricity generation (PVs) with the local existing DHC network, reducing the consumption of fossil primary energy for heating and cooling production.
Solution for re-purposing Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries. EV taxis of the private company OU Takso in Tartu will be partially recharged based on renewable energy that is produced on-site with PV panels and stored in used EV batteries improving the yield of the batteries.
The City of Tartu replaced 320 existing sodium lights in the city centre area of Tartu with energy efficient LED lighting. The new lighting and the traffic and environmental sensors, together with the wireless control units developed by Cityntel OU, form a smart street lighting network.
To improve energy efficiency of existing residential buildings by 70% as part of EU Horizon 2020 GrowSmarter Project, renovation measures were undertaken. This includes building envelope insulation, high efficient windows, staircase lighting, elevator and heating system.
Energy efficient refurbishment of a residential building - Brf Årstakrönet
Under the GrowSmarter project, this measure focusses on energy efficient refurbishment of a residential building from 2007: Brf Årstakrönet, with 56 private condominiums.
Under the Smart Lighting measure of the Grow Smarter project, the goal is to demonstrate and test three different technologies for smart street lighting: remote, self-controlled and sensor-controlled LED lighting. In this Use Case the focus is on a stand alone system
Energy efficient refurbishment of the building - Educative centre Escola Sert
Gas Natural Fenosa has implemented energy refurbishment of an Educative center Escola Sert. The aim is to validate the technical and economic feasibility of adding renewable energy generation to a tertiary building in the form of building integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs) for self-consumption.
In Barcelona, Endesa deployed an innovative “Data Hub”, named Multiservice Concentrator (MSC), allocated in the secondary substation with the aim to serve as a data node, collecting and managing city data.
This project is a key part of Aberdeen's digital transformation. The City COuncil has invested in a £9.7 million seven-year rolling programme of replacing the old inefficient and expensive street lighting with more efficient and cost-effective LED lighting.
The project entails the installation of a heat exchanger and water-to-water heat pumps, that will recover the heat from sewage water, in order to improve the efficiency of gas fired heaters in schools.
In London, households in the Royal Borough of Greenwich were incentivised through points-based rewards to change their energy consumption patterns and behaviour, with the goal of reducing pressure on the grid during peak times.