Energy consumption in homes and commercial buildings needs strategy as well as controls to realise sustainable gains.
Property developers today need to take seriously the importance of designing and constructing energy efficient offices, commercial buildings and homes. “It is not just enough to make use of equipment that saves energy and to implement low power lighting,” says Nico van der Merwe, product manager building systems at Schneider Electric South Africa. “Proper controls need to be in place to ensure that these measures make a real reduction in how energy is consumed. If sustainable gains are to be made, every device or feature that uses energy must become part of the solution.”
Van der Merwe adds that an important element of energy efficient buildings is changing the mindsets of individuals so that their behaviour and habits align to energy saving practices and contribute to raising overall savings through technology driven automation and control. A Schneider Electric international white paper reveals that in most countries, each domestic dwelling, will generate more than six tons of carbon dioxide a year, enough gas to fill six hot-air balloons. “What is really important,” says van der Merwe, “is for homeowners to remember that just switching off the lights in unoccupied rooms could save more than two tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year. At offices the information technology revolution has resulted in huge growth in the construction of data-centres that have triggered large increases in electricity consumption. Air conditioning for both data centre cooling and conventional environmental control of the work space is also a contributor to rising electricity consumption.”
Van der Merwe believes that in South Africa there is no reason why electricity and other energy forms cannot be actively saved. It requires understanding of what is at stake and the motivation and desire to do something about it. Residential buildings are rarely, if ever, appropriate for precise metering and measurement but there are steps that can be taken towards adopting active energy efficiency practices. The starting point for active energy efficiency is to measure, because you cannot change what you do not know, and you will not know if you do not measure.
Only then, should automation and control be used to ensure that energy is only being consumed when necessary. Permanent improvements to processes must be made to maintain consistent performance through monitoring and maintenance. Many measures are easy to install, with a low implementation cost and quick payback, especially when retrofitting existing buildings or installations. These include the installation of inexpensive lighting controls such as room occupancy sensors. Communal areas can also be targeted by active energy efficiency applications, for instance, occupancy controls for lighting, heating, and ventilation.
Van der Merwe concludes: “Energy efficiency products can save between 10 and 40 percent in electricity consumption in residential and small commercial buildings.
These products include dimmers, time-switches, movement/presence detectors and light-sensitive switches all controlled by management systems.”
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