Assessment of the Improvement Potential of Innovative Building Management Systems
Abstract
According to the European Commission, buildings are responsible for about 40 % of the end energy consumption and about 36 % of the CO2 emissions in Europe. Improving the building’s envelope and integrating energy efficient systems for heating, cooling, and ventilation as well as lighting can decrease the energy consumption of these buildings significantly. In addition, the integration of technologies using renewable energies is helping to reduce CO2 emissions furthermore. However, in many cases, building services are not operated in an optimal way and offer therefore a high potential of improving the energy and comfort performance of buildings. For a building operation, the energy flows indicated in Fig. 1 can be observed. Here, the energy need of a building is determined by the desired indoor climate and is effected by internal and external gains and loads. The amount of primary energy required to provide this building need depends then on the generation systems and its fossil fuels used, the different distribution systems and the supply systems for heating, cooling and ventilation within the building zones. Covering all these different subsystems, a control system is required to reduce the losses of each subsystem.