Milan was the venue for the “Esco Tech Forum” workshop. On May 12, 2016, leading industry experts met at this event organized by Assoesco to talk about enabling technologies in energy efficiency
Enabling technologies? In what sense?
These are those technologies that contribute from various points of view to the feasibility of implementing projects to improve and reduce energy consumption.
District heating and thermal networks
ENEA in accordance with the program of the Ministry of Economic Development is researching solutions, mainly of a design/management nature, in the area of energy networks: particularly thermal and electrical networks.
In Italy there are currently 148 sites with district heating networks in operation.
The idea is to establish a two-way relationship between the nodes in the network.
In contrast to the classic scheme in which there is a heating system and a network of purely passive users, nowadays we are increasingly faced with a scenario in which there are active users, i.e., network nodes equipped with their own energy production systems (e.g., solar home systems).
By being able to organize a two-way exchange, it would be possible to establish a daily and seasonal storage service, maximizing the efficiency of the network as more of the local resource is exploited
Efficiency vs. Price
In general, the common mentality means that when a good or resource is acceptably priced, people do not tend to consider it particularly important and thus reduce its uses: try to think of how much attention you pay to saving fuel rather than saving shower water!
Here, the industry magazine CITY LIFE MAGAZINE says that saving money and making efficiency remains a strategic action even when energy costs less!
Seeking efficiency means moving in the direction of source independence. Reducing emissions in the long run makes the system more sustainable and reduces latent costs (such as health care costs due to toxic emissions)
IoT (Internet Of Things) applied to monitoring networks
The Internet of Things is the trend of the present. The availability of sufficiently wide, stable and secure bandwidth connections and the possibility of relatively low-cost development of low-power and even wireless devices makes it possible to implement sophisticated monitoring solutions at low cost! Devices can communicate with each other and make available a large amount of information that wisely interpreted enables better network management and plant conduction
Monitoring systems: an in-depth study
These are those sets of tools that allow through cost center analysis to assess the energy needs and specific consumption of each department.
The December 2014Energy Efficiency Report (titled Energy Intelligence, Risk Management and Financing Models for Energy Efficiency Projects) discusses how various energy consumption monitoring systems can lead to a percentage reduction in overall energy bills (electric and thermal). These systems are categorized as follows:
SMART METERING SYSTEM (SMS) – Simple monitoring system
FUNCTIONS.
Hardware metering devices send digital signals that are acquired. Software reprocesses the data with the goal of monitoring consumption trends and performing basic energy analysis (e.g.,identifying the most energy-intensive areas of the system)
APPLICATION
Both to the production process and building
ENERGY INFORMATION SYSTEM (EIS) – Monitoring and analysis system.
FUNCTIONS.
Adds to the functionality of SMS systems the ability to perform more complex analyses
- bechmarks(comparisons) with ideal situations
- Technical-economic simulations of replacement of energy-absorbing devices in the utility
APPLICATION
Both to the production process and building
IN CONCLUSION.
The first step in improving a situation is to know it: energy savings cannot be made without a preliminary study conducted with dedicated monitoring systems in order to identify with certainty where and how to intervene on the most relevant cost centers.
Awareness about one’s energy consumption situation is the indispensable starting point of plant efficiency upgrading toward non-negligible savings.
