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The iSERVcmb project has now been completed and has a number of findings to report. This newsletter is structured to reflect the final report for the project, which is available in full and with links to even more information at www.iservcmb.info/results.

The main findings are that:

• The proposed process leads to significant savings in operational buildings across Europe – with an-nual electricity savings of up to 5% of the total EU electrical energy use appearing possible.
• The iSERVcmb spreadsheet can be used for all buildings and HVAC systems across Europe
• The project has produced a unique set of measured data on energy use and power demands in HVAC sub-components servicing given end use activities across Europe
• Energy Conservations Opportunities are capable of being identified from sub-hourly data
• Physical Inspections and Indoor Air Quality studies have confirmed that continuous use of metered data can be used to benchmark the performance of buildings and systems
• The approach and data is of interest to Building Services Professional Bodies in providing guidance to their members on improving the operational energy efficiency of building services

All the main Actors from across Europe, with an interest in reducing the operational energy use of buildings and their building services, have participated in and/or contributed to the shape and findings of this project.

I hope you find the project outputs useful and interesting.
Ian Knight

Click here to download the final, pdf version of the iSERVcmb Newsletter.

The advantages and possible further use of the developed monitoring tool were also discussed in the Task Force Workshop “Ventilation and AC inspections in Cold Climate countries” organised during the Annual Meeting. The presentation of experts from Nordic countries showed that there is a clear need for further practical guidance for member states – including the ones considered as more advances in this field, which have already implemented the EBPD regulation on the monitoring of AC systems. In the following REHVA Technical and Research Committee it was agreed that the AC Inspection Task Force will include instructions and guidance about the monitoring of AC system based on iSERV in its upcoming AC inspection Guidebook.

http://www.rehva.eu/publications-and-resources/hvac-journal/2014/032014/power-demands-of-heating-ventilating-and-air-conditioning-components-in-eu-buildings/

Power Demands of Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning components in EU Buildings

The importance of understanding energy use at HVAC component level

A previous paper in the January 2104 REHVA Journal (Knight, 2014) proposed that detailed monitoring of energy use at HVAC component level was likely to be a key element in achieving sustained reductions in energy use in EU buildings. To use this detailed monitoring to its full potential it needs to have benchmarks against which it can be compared, and Power Demand benchmarks are a key component for identifying Energy Conservation Opportunities.

The iSERVcmb project (www.iservcmb.info) is producing what is believed to be the first public dataset of measured energy and power consumption of HVAC components operating in European Buildings. This paper presents a brief overview of a subset of this data, normalised Power Demands, to illustrate some of the forthcoming outputs from the project this summer.

The Power Demands presented here are from measured data obtained during the iSERVcmb project. It was taken from 1700+ HVAC systems and components drawn from across Europe, which are servicing a variety of activities and floor areas. This measured data is a key element in the HVAC system benchmarking process proposed and tested by iSERVcmb across 16 EU Member States.

With such a large dataset it is inevitable that the data covers a wide range of years, and as such will continue to be analysed at finer levels of detail before the end of iSERVcmb to explore different ways of examining the data. However, the full dataset present at the time of this paper is used to provide the largest data source possible for analysis here.

Due to the analysis work still to be completed, this paper therefore provides only an overview of the ranges of Power Demands being found in practice by HVAC Component Type normalised by Area serviced by that component. Note that this floor area is derived from the iSERV spreadsheet and is therefore much more accurate than simply relating power demand to total building floor area.

Measured Energy Use by HVAC components

The iSERVcmb process philosophy is based around physically quantifiable parameters i.e. energy, space, activity types, and HVAC system components. A HVAC component could be, for example, a fan, pump, air handling unit, cold generator, etc. There are subcomponents of these component types…..To read the full article, download the attachment below.

The workshop allowed participants to take a world first look at the energy end use of HVAC components in practice across the EU. The aim of the workshop was to disseminate the final iSERV project findings with regard to HVAC system inspections, energy savings, IAQ findings, case studies, processes and practices. The workshop covered the following themes:

-Inspection of HVAC Systems through continuous monitoring and benchmarking

-iSERV, Inspection and Policy

-Parallel discussions about the deployment of iSERV results

-Use of iSERV Benchmarks

-Legislating for use of Intelligent Metering.

Hywel Davies, CIBSE’s Technical Director opened the workshop and welcomed all participants. After providing the audience with a short overview of the workshop, Prof. Ian Knight, Coordinator of project iSERV explained the background of energy consumption of HVAC systems in Europe, the iSERV methodology and highlighted the outcomes and questions arising from the project. He was followed by the BRE’s Roger Hitchin, who set the iSERV project aims and outcomes against the backdrop of current inspection practices and policies in the UK..

Subsequently, two roundtable discussions took place:

1) iSERV for HVAC system operators, manufacturers and owners

Group 1 was moderated by Prof. Ian Knight and was given a detailed presentation of the iSERV reports provided to end users participating to the project. Participants were primarily interested in the type and variety of benchmarks produced by the iSERV approach, the use of the building’s fabric and solar gain in the calculation of the benchmarks, the compatibility of building description data from other sources to the iSERV spreadsheet and the content of the iSERV reports. The topics that were discussed are presented in detail below:

Question from the audience:Can iSERV produce benchmarks that are more popular in commercial buildings:

•Energy use against occupancy

•Energy use against rental price sqm

•Energy use against G.I.A.

Response:The iSERV platform has the ability to produce these benchmarks. However this will require end users to provide more data about their buildings. In the life span of the project, we chose to restrict the amount of information required from the end users to the process of describing their building as a structure of spaces, HVAC systems and components. We hope that the iSERV benchmarks will act as a starting point to further discussion with stakeholders and project work that will allow for the production of additional benchmarks.

Question from the audience:Do the iSERV benchmarks and reports take into consideration the building fabric and solar gains?

Response:Within iSERV there is an allowance for gathering more information about outside conditions from internal building sensors in order to calculate energy signatures but the project deliberately does not consider fabric explicitly due to the unacceptable data demands this would impose during the project. Within iSERV the building fabric is treated as part of the Energy Conservation Opportunities. It is possible for iSERV to evolve to consider fabric issues if needed, initially by using assumptions regarding the building fabric based on the location, type and construction year of the examined building.

Question from the audience:Can iSERV provide conclusions on the range of savings deriving from oversized plants?

Response:iSERV is currently reporting electrical energy savings of up to 60% in individual systems and 5 – 33% were expected on average. Those savings have derived from understanding the building and improving system control. We do not aim at identifying oversized plants as something that is a bad approach; we are looking at producing ranges of what systems consume without differentiating between oversized and non-oversized plants. However, where installed load data is provided, we can examine the relationship between installed load, power demand and energy use.

Question from the audience:Going beyond legislative frameworks, what is the vision in using the information produced in the iSERV project?

Response:iSERV is hoping to contribute towards establishing standards regarding the collection and use of building services data. In particular, it hopes to provide an online benchmarking resource for such data which will be continually updated.

Question from the audience:Is there a way to automatically import building description data from to other platforms (e.g. BIM, TM22) to the iSERV spreadsheet?

Response:Although we recognise that such a feature would help in reducing the time and effort needed to fill the iSERV spreadsheet for those who do have building description data in other formats, this has not been part of the project’s scope. We hope that the iSERV findings with regard to building data collection and quality will contribute to the creation of relevant standards to reduce such hurdles.

Question from the audience:Does iSERV allow for the calculation of costs from operating specific HVAC components?

Response:The iSERV platform can provide end users with HVAC components running costs as long as the end user can provide a tariff unit.

Question from the audience:What are the expected typical costs to describe a building using the iSERV spreadsheet?

Response:The iSERV spreadsheet is an asset register that can be viewed as a time and cost investment. We have calculated a conservative cost of filling out the iSERV spreadsheet of approximately €1/m2 based on observations during iSERV.

Question from the audience:From the perspective of conducting inspections, how does the iSERV spreadsheet compare to TM44?

Response:The iSERV spreadsheet can be used as a detailed asset register to support TM44 requirements during inspections.

Question from the audience:What do the iSERV reports consist of?

Response:There are a number of standard reports contained within the HERO database. If these are not sufficient then bespoke reports can be designed according to the end user needs by logging into the HERO database and selecting the information to be included.

2) iSERV for legislators, policy makers, professional bodies & associations

Group 2 was led through the discussion by Roger Hitchin. The group agreed that the financial advantages of energy efficiency are valuable to all stakeholders; however if incentives were available in order to push end users to introduce more energy efficient measures, some inspector’s neutrality could be questionable by dint of financial reward. Moreover, participants suggested that the information deriving from inspections tends to be too technical for certain audiences. It was pointed out the iSERV approach shows savings to end users in a clear and understandable way that allows them to embrace it as they start to understand their buildings better.

Some participants proposed the iSERV method to be rolled out nationally in schools amongst which many have BMS or metering but no means of analysing the metered data. The iSERV approach could be applied not just for air conditioning but for all energy and water usage, benchmarked by type of school, as this could become a good transparent tool for bursars. For this to be achieved, participants agreed that it is crucial for BMS data to be compatible to the iSERV spreadsheet.

Overall the group concluded that the iSERV spreadsheet would be invaluable despite having to be completed by or with the help of a competent person and should expand to include more detailed lighting description, water usage etc. Most importantly, for an iSERV type of approach to become more popular there is a need for metered data to exist in open protocol and BMS terminology should be standardized.

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The scope of the conference will be to offer various stakeholders – researchers, industry, building owners, end users, consultants, engineers, architects, policy makers – a platform for the exchange of scientific knowledge and innovative technical solutions.
REHVA community endorsed and disseminated already the HARMONAC project and is looking for the learn about the final results about the H.E.R.O tool, HVAC system benchmarks across iSERV partner countries and the future exploitation of the online tool. iSERVcmb results will be presented by Ian Knight based on the final outcomes of iSERV partners joint work.

The conference programme and registration details are available in the REHVA website.

Public workshops for stakeholders (building owners and administrators, HVAC system designers, manufacturers and inspectors and legislators) are a key part of the iSERV communication strategy. The concept is to briefly introduce the work previously done, with focus on relevant tools and findings for the audience. Afterwards the participants are split into discussion groups, each supported by iSERV researchers, where they can ask questions and discuss about the applicability, ideas and concerns related to the project. This helps them to learn more about the methods used and at the same time they provide valuable feedback to the project team. Each internal iSERV project meeting is combined with such a public workshop.

Please register on www.iservcmb.info if you wish to attend and ask questions of the project team.

Author: Ian Knight (Cardiff University)

Recognizing that system and plant performance is a global issue this joint CIBSE and ASHRAE symposium will give a platform to best practice and research from around the world.

The annual Technical Symposium, now in its fourth year, encourages the participation of both researchers and industry practitioners at all stages in their career to share experiences and develop networks. It will explore both active and passive building systems that will shape an effective future for the built environment and maximise energy efficiency.

Professor Tim Dwyer, who has helped organise the Symposium content, says: “The Symposium will consider a range of topics that underpin the engineering assessment, design and operation of systems that integrate with the aim of delivering future cities that not only provide inhabitants with acceptable and maintainable conditions but strive to mitigate their environmental impact.

“We have seen part of this challenge brought into sharp focus over the past 12 months with continued urban density growth in fast developing nations and incidents such as air quality issues in China, political and consumer reactions to rising energy costs in the UK, and the resilience of buildings in the freezing weather conditions recently experienced in North America.”

Over 60 papers, posters and case studies will be presented in sessions covering:

• The effectiveness of systems in use.
• Evaluating the performance gap.
• The reality of setting ‘thermal comfort’.
• Measuring and managing energy use to reduce impact.
• Balancing energy use with user expectation.
• Mind the gap – modelling towards reality.
• Benchmarking to enable improved building design.
• Taking the heat off the grid – local heat and power systems.
• Assessing and delivering designs that aspire to nothing.
• The urban truth of delivering sustainable cities.

The event expands CIBSE President, George Adams’s Presidential address “Whole Life Thinking”. In this address he commented that engineers working in the built environment had an urgent responsibility to help reduce energy consumption and provide for adaptation of buildings and cities to respond to the challenges of climate change whilst accommodating the needs of rapidly growing populations.
http://www.cibse.org/index.cfm?go=events.view&item=4703

Author: Anastasia Mylona (CIBSE – Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers)