Case Study: Integrated ICT Solutions for Energy Efficiency: the E3SoHo French 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 France 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 pilot site of Lievin is a Social Housing Building built in 1976 and refurbished in 1992, there is no refurbishment planned in the frame of the project. The site consists of 60 social housing dwellings. It is divided into 4 buildings of 15 units each one (from studio to 3 pieces). It is filled with both young adult people and elder people (over 180 users). There are no shops or other facilities in the lower floor.

Pre-existing products integrated:
- Heating System: Each dwelling is equipped with electric heaters controlled individually. (Power: from 750 W to 2000 W according to the rooms). These facilities are aged about twenty years.
- Ventilation System: Each dwelling is equipped with Ventilation System (VMC) simple flows.
- Domestic Hot Water: Each dwelling is equipped with individual electric water heaters. The hot water will be stored in one tank with a capacity of 150 litres. A thermostat allows a slight adjustment of the outlet temperature of hot water.

Service description:
The service is to be based on networked sensors for performance data collection, smart meters installed in the dwellings with the ICT solution implemented to monitor the energy consumption of the dwellings, and overall integrated software to collect & analyse data. The service is to allow:
- optimised energy management – integrating control of the lighting system, of the HVAC system, etc.;
- presence detection to assess impact of use - including for real-time consumption information of one-family-apartments;
connection through the Internet for remote control, monitoring, assessment based on collected data, etc.;
- management of friendly user interfaces/energy-displays offering selected content to various stakeholders at the appropriated time, and under the appropriate form.

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

Additional Information

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