Implementing smart ICT concepts for energy efficiency in public buildings

Duration: 2012 - 2015 ● Client: European Commission (FP6) ● WIP Role: Coordination, Market uptake ● www.smartbuild.eu

Energy efficiency is at the heart of the European Union´s “Europe 2020 Strategy” for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and the transition to a resource efficient economy. The public building sector and its heat consumption will be of prime importance in the upcoming years to reach the overall target of 20 % energy savings in Europe by 2020.

The need of innovative methods and technologies to measure and monitor quality and energy efficiency in publics buildings is one of the main specific problems addressed by the proposed project. The Smart Build project goal is the creation of an integrated monitoring and control system, able to communicate with ICT devices, in order to satisfy the user and the building requirements with a minimum amount of energy, to monitor and control the energy flows in the building and to integrate micro-generation from renewable energy systems and storage in an intelligent and sustainable way.

The proposed system consists of an energy control and management solution composed by different off-the-shell devices and components. The control system is built on an integrated architecture, based on sensors, counters and meters (level 1), which communicate to an electronic gateway that sends data (level 2) to a webserver for information storage and processing (level 3). The global estimated energy savings to be obtained with this control system and ICT device are approximately 20-35% (depending on the building and on the control functions implemented).

The Smart Build project will be implemented in nine existing public buildings in Italy, Slovenia and Greece in order to reach energy savings in annual consumption and to provide social-economic benefits to building users, to building managers, to public authorities and to distributor network operators. The target users will be building owners (public authorities) or tenants (who pay the energy bills) and final users (who are exposed to the indoor environmental conditions).

Unlike other energy modelling systems, the Smart Build project will create models based on the real data and the real use of the architectural and electric/thermal/hydraulic building drivers.

The partners in the Smart Build project consortium are:

• WIP – Renewable Energies, Germany (Coordinator)
• F.A.R. Systems, Italy
• EURAC, Accademia Europea per la Ricerca applicata ed il Perfezionamento, Italy
• SCV, School Centre Velenje, Slovenia
• CRES, Centre for Renewable Energies, Greece
• TUW-EEG, Technische Universitaet Wien, Austria
• Generplus, Impianti fotovoltaici Livorno, Italy

The Smart Build project is supported by the European Commission DG Information, Society and Media, ICT PSP under the Competitiviness and Innovation Framework Programme.