Improving Energy Efficiency and Risk Management in EU Public Buildings

National and regional authorities worldwide have passed legislation in order to mitigate climate change. For example, the “20-20-20” targets of the European Commission include a 20% improvement in energy efficiency by 2020 relative to 1990 levels (EU, 2008; EU, 2009). One pathway for this objective to be achieved is via improved operational and retrofitting practices in existing buildings. Since the building sector is responsible for nearly 40% of the energy consumed in the EU (EU, 2011), sectoral improvements could make a substantial impact overall. Contemporaneously, electricity-sector deregulation in most industrialised countries aims to improve economic efficiency by providing more transparent price signals to producers and consumers (Wilson, 2002). Indeed, unlike the hierarchical, vertically integrated paradigm, the deregulated one facilitates more decentralised decision making. On the one hand, this creates incentives for building managers to respond to market conditions by adjusting their set points in the short term (taking into account weather forecasts and occupancy levels) or by retrofitting in the long term; yet, on the other hand, they will have to guard against volatile energy prices and to trade off both investment and operational decisions over time. In effect, consumers need better decision support for potentially conflicting objectives, e.g., lowering energy costs, managing risk, and improving energy efficiency. From the perspective of public building managers in the EU, an optimisation approach based on modelling energy flows may enhance decision making. In particular, our preliminary results based on data from test sites in Austria and Spain (as part of the EU FP7 EnRiMa project) indicate how dynamic zone temperatures for heating via conventional radiators and heating/cooling via HVAC systems reduce energy consumption by 10%. This is possible by responding to external conditions and internal loads while taking into account the thermodynamics of the heating/cooling system and the building’s physics. Longer-term savings from retrofitting may also be possible and are being investigated.