Improving energy efficiency by optimizing building operations

During the planning phase, buildings are often labelled as ‘innovative’, ‘ecological’ or ‘intelligent’. When the buildings are constructed and go into operation, the reporting and documentation usually ends. However, regardless of the actual success of the building concept in daily use, the labels applied by the designers remain. Various studies have clearly shown that buildings often perform considerably less well than targets set during the planning phase. This is hardly surprising since today’s non-residential buildings are increasingly complex ‘systems’, particularly with regard to achieving a high standard of comfort and the interrelation with the individual uses. In this regard, buildings are often individually designed and constructed prototypes, whose commissioning require a phase of intensive adjustment and optimisation.

There are various reasons why the objectives set in the planning phase often fail to be fully realised: the design is focussed too much on the construction of the building and not enough on operation. There is a lack of clear guidelines for adjustment and operational management of the building’s technical systems, and a frequent lack of quality assurance means that systems are only effective to a limited extent. In addition, it is rare for there to be documentation or events providing information and training for the users, and conventional operation monitoring and facility management systems can only recognise suboptimal operating methods to a limited degree. Moreover, building performance is only evaluated in the rarest of cases. This ultimately means that innovative building concepts and technologies only partly function in practice and are unable to meet their full potential for achieving comfort and energy efficiency. In particular, energy efficiency is a factor that is often not fully exploited. 10 to 20% of the electricity and heat consumption can be saved in many buildings using measures that require no or very little investment – with amortisation below 3 years. And because many architects and specialist planners never find out whether their buildings ever function as planned, evaluation can now be implemented and constructively designed as a necessary learning process.

EnBop

In the research area ‘energy-oriented operation optimisation’ (EnBop), conventional and innovative non-residential buildings are tested during ongoing operation in order to optimise the building performance by simple means requiring no or very little investment. This new field of research and the corresponding individual projects will be coordinated and all projects documented by the Institute for Building Services and Solar Technology at the TU Braunschweig (IGS). The IGS is relying on an interdisciplinary team from architecture, specialist planning, psychology, medicine, the real estate industry and IT to evaluate the different factors required for the optimising the operation of buildings.

The research focuses on performance potential through the optimisation of buildings in operation. This optimisation includes all the fields relevant to building operation, from comprehensive function descriptions to effective energy management and from defect management to user training. Alongside energy efficiency and indoor climate, productivity and performance potential of the users will also be studied. EnBop will concentrate its key research focus on commissioning, which literally refers to acceptance of a building but now incorporates measures for continuous target and quality assurance for the entire life cycles of buildings.

At the centre of the research projects are case studies on operation management of innovative buildings, systems or components. Furthermore, methods to improve the operational management of buildings are being tested and new kinds of tools and service concepts developed. A particular focus is on the long-term sustainability and economic feasibility of the optimisation, which are examined in terms of measures specific to the particular buildings.

There are three key focus areas of EnBop:

i) Development:
Methods, tools and services for operation optimisation

Innovative buildings are increasingly using new and complex building automation systems. At the same time, the demands on user comfort and availability have increased. In order to facilitate energy-efficient operation under these conditions, new methods and tools are needed so that building management can operate the technical systems optimally. New teaching and training concepts, services and service models can accelerate their use. The development and testing of new methods, tools and services is an important part of EnBop.

ii) Sustainability and economic viability:
Documentation on energy-oriented operation optimisation

In order to be able to assess expected optimisation and savings effect, the performance of the building must be precisely calculated. So, the building must be tested over several years – continuously and in ongoing operation. The method, the technical and economic benefits and the sustainability of the operation optimisation are documented using examples of real building projects. This should convince owners and user of major buildings to cost-effectively exploit their optimisation potentials.

Buildings wanted

EnBop must rely on actual buildings and projects. Consequently, the research here is looking for contacts with the building industry in order to test new optimisation methods and tools on example projects and to document their optimisation potentials. They are looking for investors, owners, operators and users who would like to evaluate and optimise their buildings in model research projects. Scientific facilities are being called upon to develop the respective research concepts as part of the subsidy policy aims of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi). Efforts are being made to establish close ties between industry and science. Of course, any sensitive company data will be treated confidentially.

Would you like to put your buildings to the test and systematically find out about their potential for optimisation? Then please contact the Institute of Building Services and Solar Technology (IGS) at the TU Braunschweig.