Pilot experience in social housing: Intelligent monitoring of energy consumption
Almada, Portugal
The HERB Project, Holistic Energy-efficient Retrofitting of residential Buildings, was implemented in Almada between 2012 and 2016. It focused on the development and demonstration of energy efficient new and innovative technologies and solutions for retrofitting and performance monitoring of residential buildings in EU countries. In Almada, the demonstration building is located at the parish of Caparica. It is a multiapartment building used for social housing purposes and started off with very low energy standards. The energy refurbishment of this building included roof and external wall insulation; solar thermal and PV hybrid collectors with surface nanocoating; high efficiency double glazing windows; LED lighting; natural ventilation and the installation of a remote monitoring system with sensors for electricity, gas and water consumption, alongside with humidity and temperature sensors (picture below) From an asset rating point of view, the introduced measures resulted in 93,6% energy savings and 92,7% CO2 savings (this includes electricity produced on site). Most importantly, for a deprived social environment, is the satisfaction of the residents: pre and post retrofit surveys revealed that comfort perceived as increased significantly (50% increase) and the number of discomfort situations has decreased dramatically (90% decrease).
Benefits
- possible energy data analyse
- lower energy costs
- lower energy usage
- reducing CO2 emissions