Energy saving in existing buildings through comprehensive monitoring and automation concepts

Short description of the project

In Germany, almost 40% of the total final energy consumption of over 2500 terawatt hours is required for the conditioning of buildings (heating, cooling, hot water preparation, ventilation and lighting). Since only about 1% of the entire building stock is renovated each year, considerable amounts of energy can be saved in unrenovated old buildings by modernizing the heating system, thus making an important contribution to reducing CO2 emissions at relatively low investment costs.

Project goals

Within the “E-MonAut project“, measures for the optimization of operational management are being investigated and evaluated, which, with a relatively low investment volume, can be expected to make a comparatively large contribution to reducing the final energy demand while at the same time actively protecting the building fabric (e.g. preventing mold growth) and taking into account the individual user needs (comfort and economic criteria, information requirements). To this end, concepts to support users in the operation of heating and ventilation by means of comprehensive monitoring and automation concepts are developed and prototypically implemented. Comprehensive means that the concepts are designed both for all buildings (i.e. taking into account the coupling of rooms and the building envelope) and for all trades (heating, heat metering services, ventilation).

Projet results

In detail, the following major problem areas in the operational management of heating and ventilation should be eliminated or at least reduced:

1. Heating and ventilation have so far been operated largely uncoordinated and not sufficiently in line with demand. For example, after energy-related renovations, mold growth occurs in approx. 40% of the properties.
2. The users receive only insufficient feedback at very long intervals regarding the costs of operating heating and ventilation.
3. A large proportion of heating systems are energetically suboptimal, since the users are usually overstrained with the optimal parameterization.
4. The weather control of the heating system does not lead to a good estimation of the actual heating demand, because decisive parameters (building physics parameters, sensorial recording of solar gains, air quality and humidity) are not or only insufficiently considered