Case Study: Integrated ICT Solutions for Energy Efficiency: the E3SoHo Polish pilot

Short Description

Main objective:
Deployment, test and evaluation of integrated solutions based on ICT to improve energy savings and energy awareness consumption in Social housing with a focus on renovation. The pilot will:
- demonstrate solutions to improve energy audit;
- allow an improvement of the follow-up and exploitation of the building (HVAC, lighting,…);
- exhibit interfaces that are “highly-communicating” (friendly) to the stakeholders;
- provide with a kind of show-room in Poland for ICT support to EE in social housing. The pilot should also give the opportunity to better define the way forward to developing consultancy services in innovation related to ICT-based EE in social housing and beyond..

Short description of the Building:
The building, with a capacity of 9444.40 m3 and floor area of 1639.13 m3, was constructed in 2007, with supporting structure made of reinforced concrete, curtain wall and longitudinal hall walls made of aerated concrete, external load-bearing wall insulated with expanded polystyrene, and window woodwork of PVC, with traditional incandescent lighting. The building has two staircases, five above-ground storeys. It was occupied in the period between August and December 2008. The building has 48 apartments inhabited by 111 persons. Almost half of the apartments are inhabited by families with children. Indebtedness related to rental payments amounts to PLN 7056.84, the average period of indebtedness being 3.5 months. A building with entry phone, telephone line and community aerial. There is an office of ZGN with an area of 255.60 m2 in the building, and a common room, in which meetings with residents may be held.
Pre-existing products integrated
A building with electrical and gas installation, water-supply and sewage-disposal system. Gas heating (gas boiler house); gravitational ventilation in the whole building. ZGN Ursus [the property-management centre] does not plan any additional works in the building in 2010.

Service description:
The thermal center and central domestic hot water preparation, heating and gas installations will be controlled by an intelligent management system. This system will be connected to a central unit. The connection to district heating network and gas network will be also integrated in the Central unit., The sensors needed for the intelligent system performance (Light level, Presence detection, Temperature, Humidity, Air flow,...) will be installed within dwellings. The possibility of installing PVs will be considered. In such case Power electronics for integration and management of energy sources Smart meters will be installed in the dwellings with the solution implemented to monitor the energy consumption of the dwellings. Dwellings with the ICT solution implemented will be interconnected among them through a network that at the same time will be connected to internet. In addition, the monitoring will be also carried out in dwellings without the ICT solution installed by means of traditional electricity meters.

Key Elements

Work with Residents

Increased energy awareness, e.g. smart meters can provide users with direct feedback on costs and environmental effects of their consumption. Studies show that this leads to a reduction in electricity consumption of 5% to 15% and fosters the appreciation of electricity as a valuable good.

Incentives

Opportunity for enhanced incentive schemes, with high resolution data on energy consumption enables novel energy pricing and bonus schemes. If designed properly, these incentive systems can unfold a positive effect on peak load and absolute consumption – and help to integrate the user in the overall strategy.

Main Results

Lessons learned

Please click HERE to find out more about the E3SoHo Project.