To describe principles, concepts and implementation of the efficient utilities management systems in house and building we need to concentarte on the main items :
- What means the efficient energy management in house and buildings
- Structure and elements of a energy management system
- Labelling of household goods and it’s advantages
- How work a Domo control system, details about the hardware and software implementation
- Metering systems used in house (electrical energy and thermal energy)
- Tele-metering systems; Automatic Meter Reading systems (AMR), principles, elements, and structure
- Lighting systems, switchers use for the commutation of electrical circuits
- Generation of electrical power in house or buildings, especially the Renewable Energy Sources (RES)
- Interfaces use to interconnect the efficient energy management elements together
What means " efficient energy management " in house ?
Definition
People consume in their houses different kind of natural resources like: water, gas and energy. In order to optimize the consumption, reduce the exploitation costs and increase the “comfort”, modern houses include digital processing system that implement different strategies in order to reach the goals above mentioned.
Not only the active, but also the passive measures are important in the global balance of energy. To enlarge house isolation layers, the amount of tools and household systems would be an example of passive measures.
A lot of initiatives are developed around the world. In Germany, for example the Deutscher Städtetag, Arbeitskreis Energieeinsparung (the German association of medium and big cities, working group energy conservation) has prepared energy guidelines for municipal administrations. The guidelines cover:
- Architecture
- Constructive heat protection
- Heating systems
- Ventilation and air conditioning
- Sanitary systems
- Lighting and other electrical systems
- Monitoring and control systems
The Life Cycle Cost (LCC) represents an important indicator that must be taken into account when a decision is made, but often, it is difficult to evaluate the cost of a particular implementation.
The “efficient energy management” alludes especially to the electrical energy consumption management, but it involves also many other elements such as: scheduling the consumption adapted to the house needs and the programmed tasks, smoothing of the electric power curve and increasing the house comfort. The other forms of energy, like thermal energy, water and gas are not ignored either.
By modeling all the energetic resources it is possible to obtain an optimal usage of them. In figure 1 is illustrated one of possible optimization models:
Figure 1 Impacts of Energy Efficiency Programs On Energy Markets, by: Walter Gerardi, from McLennan Magasanik Associates, April 2004
The model takes into account the three main elements: the estimations related to the energy demands, coming from the consumer’s side, the electricity and gas capacity to cover the demands, coming from producer side, and the technologies that could be used to reach with minimum costs these needs of energy.
These are also associated with the impact on environment and economy resulted from the simulation. A very important factor is also the gas emissions (CO2 especially) generated by the production of energy and also degree with that are affected the energy resources for the future.
Latest goal in the optimal management of energy resources is represented by the sustainability of energy production, that means to reach a maximum efficient production and consumption of energy, to protect the environment and to obtain the social acceptance of the energy production methods employed (see figure 2). Safeguarding of the power resources becomes more and more a security problem for the majority of states of the world.
Figure 2 Triangle that represent the sustainability concept. To harmonize three requirements: efficiency, security and environment in the production and consumption of energy