Applying the NewTREND methodology on the demonstration sites provides many advantages and benefits for the project. Demonstration sites help validate the methodology and tools and give valuable feedback to previous tasks and deliverables, provide integrated project delivery methodology and help market dissemination.
Retrofitting projects, as demonstration sites benefit also from participating in the NewTREND project. Access to the online interface is provided to them to help optimize design and facilitate stakeholder involvement. Through the NewTREND toolset, “as-is” simulations help to evaluate the districts’ and buildings’ current state. Design variations can be created to analyse the different options and to facilitate the decision-making process for the retrofitting’s scope. NewTREND helps to explore funding opportunities and presents business models, as well.
Demonstration sites also had to undertake some tasks for the validation of the methodology and providing feedback. Demonstration site owners had to collect all the relevant information on the existing districts and buildings to be renovated by applying the new approach and support tools proposed, BIM and CityGML models for the simulations had to be prepared, installation of measuring and monitoring instruments had to be ensured. Demonstration site owners had to engage with all the relevant stakeholders involved in each pilot project, including occupants and decision-makers to promote participative project management. The new design methodology, platform and tools had to be applied in the real project design phases. The impacts of the new design approach had to be evaluated according to the indicators. After the completion of the retrofitting, post-retrofitting controlling had to be undertaken through monitoring the occupants’ behavior and performance of retrofitted buildings, by providing post-retrofit measurements or audits based on the behavior of building users and the observation of performance indicators.
The detailed data collection requirements and applied methods on the NewTREND demonstration sites can be found in the D
6_1. Deliverable
6_2 Report on stakeholders and occupant engagement in the pilot projects contains the data collection and analysis of demonstration sites from stakeholder perspective.
For building a model for simulation, each demo site had to create a district scale CityGML model and a building scale BIM model for advanced mode. For the demo sites application of the NewTREND methodology, BIM models are necessary. Building information modelling (BIM) is a process involving the generation and management of digital representations of physical and functional characteristics of buildings. Since BIM is becoming widespread in architectural design and in the construction industry, it was expected that the demonstration site owners would generate an appropriate BIM to provide sufficient data to IES VE simulations.
A detailed description of the BIM model creation methods and experiences and be found in Deliverable
6_3. The main conclusions of the work are:
• Creating BIM with the help of laser scanning enabled fast data collection and comprehensive coverage while providing the required accuracy and resolution. Another advantage of the rsulting point cloud was that it stored all the spatial data of the objects, so without any follow-up on-site measurements it was a good basis for a subsequent reconstruction or further design.
• The BIM models had to be exported in ifc format for building simulations. The BIM models created with the detailedness necessary for architectural planning had to be simplified. Three softwares were used for BIM creating and different methods were needed to export the needed ifc files. For the exporting a methodology were created for each type of modelling software.
CityGML is an open standard data model and exchange format for storing digital 3D models of districts. In NewTREND, demonstration site owners are required to provide CityGML files for the district level analysis and simulation. Current trends indicate that cities and municipalities in the future will have a CityGML-format database. Unfortunately, this is not the case at present, only a few municipalities have prepared the CityGML databases. The implication of this for demonstration site owners was that they had to prepare CityGML files on their own. A step-by-step guide for CityGML creating can be found in Deliverable 6.3 Evaluation of the methodology and tools.
An overview of the BIM and CityGML creating workflows can be found in the following figure.
NewTREND project has altogether six demonstration sites, in three different countries.
Old hospital area in Seinäjoki, Finland – as district and building level case studies
The old hospital area was originally constructed to be the provincial hospital at 1931. The hospital moved to the new central hospital at halfway of 1980’s. The area consists of four buildings: Main building, Dental clinic & office building, Heat Distribution building and Kivirikko House. Nowadays, the buildings are occupied by three main tenants: Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences (SeAMK), Music School of Southern Ostrobothnia and Dental Clinic.
The scope of the retrofitting hasn’t changed significantly for the Seinäjoki district and building level demonstration sites. For the district area, renewable energies sources will be added, such as a hybrid heating system (district heating and ground source heat pump) and solar PV panels.
The purpose of retrofitting the buildings is to improve indoor air quality and to lower operational costs. Occupant surveys revealed complaints about the poor indoor air quality. Complaints were the followings: moisture, stuffy air, rooms being too cold during the winter and too hot during summer. The owner’s (City of Seinäjoki) goal is to improve the indoor air quality for occupants while lowering operational costs of the buildings.
At the beginning of the project, the plan was to retrofit the whole building completely, but for now, most of the work will be done in the half of the building where Adult Education Centre is moving in. Work that will be done in Music school is work concerning floor insulation and replacement of underground piping (since it would be unreasonable to change it only in half of the building), and certain repairs on the exterior façade. Also, probably LED lighting will be done as well in both parts of the building. At this moment few inner windows of the main building were taken to a workshop where single glazing will be replaced with double-glazing to assess the ability to retrofit inner windows and its costs. Regarding HVAC system, one building half will get a new ventilation system and all radiators will get new thermostatic valve (with remote temperature sensor). Another thing which was decided to be done is to retrofit another building in the district as well, the so-called boiler room into performance center (musical and theatre performances). Design should be finalized by September 2018, which means that final decisions and construction work won’t be done during NewTREND project lifetime.
From the current state analysis of the main building with the NewTREND platform it was concluded that the building heating system should be improved for effective energy use reduction. For this a useful tool is available on the NewTREND platform. A very interesting feature of the tool is heat duration curve, where one can analyze how is the heat load distributed over the year. A key observation for the demo building is that the highest 50 % of the load is achieved in less than 5% of the year and that heat load above 80% happens in less than 8 hours per year. This means that peak power can be (and should be) curbed in the retrofit, which can be done with very low cost as it can be avoided with reprogramming building automation system. In this case saving would come mostly with paying lower peak power reserve fee to the district heating operator.
35 rented apartments in Sant Cugat, Spain – as building level case study
The first demo building in Spain is an apartment building with 35 apartments for youth people. This demo site is located in the Can Trabal neighbourhood, nearby the Golf Club and Collserola Natural Park. This demo site consists of three connected buildings by two stairways. Each block has a ground floor and two additional floors. Parking is located in the basement of one of the blocks. To overcome unevenness of the street, every block has a different ground level. The structure of the building has been built with the system Teccon (light metal structure with insulation) and wrought plate working. The building incorporates water recycling systems and solar thermal energy. It also incorporates centralized production energy for heating and hot water (DHW) with individual metering.
There were several minor retrofitting activities realised on this demo site.
Thermal panels on the roof are replaced with two separate systems (PV for electrical demand of the common spaces and thermal for domestic hot water demands). The aim was to improve the performance of solar panels, replacing the old ones with panels with higher performance. PV production is feeding into the needs of electrical common services, while thermal panels cover partially Domestic Hot Water needs.
Further improvements on the hot water and heating system: Replacement of collectors of hot water and heating system. The current collectors for hot water and heating have no insulation and they are leaking at some places, causing losses in the system. Their replacement with other collectors with better thermal insulation is proposed. Modification of the boiler room pipes to use renewable energy.
In order to integrate the various thermal systems proposed, changes will be necessary to optimize the hydraulic functioning of the system. The control system has been updated to integrate new elements of renewable energy. Individual electrical meters were installed for each of the apartments, to meter individual electrical energy consumptions. The data collected is sent to a platform where users can monitor their consumption and compare them with the rest of the consumption of the building. Light sensors in community spaces were replaced. Previously, they were on the walls, now they are placed on the ceiling, and they combine motion detection and brightness.
The demo site was not analysed in detail with the NewTREND platform.
Pins del Valles School in Sant Cugat, Spain – as district and building level case studies
The second demo site in Spain is the Pins del Vallès School (State School). The school is in an isolated and opened area of the city. The school’s buildings are in a secluded sector, surrounded by green areas and sports facilities. The area where the school is located is very airy and sunny. Pins del Vallès school consists of four buildings (Primary School Building, Administration Building, Sport Pavilion, Kindergarten Building).
The main retrofitting activites for the demo site are described in the following.
Photovoltaic panels were placed on the roof of the school to partially cover electrical energy needs. In case of surplus, it will feed back to the electrical distribution network. Altogether 102 photovoltaic modules were installed with 27,03 kWp total installed power. The control system has been improved to integrate new elements of renewable energy. Lighting system was upgraded, LED lamps were installed to replace the old system, this is reducing the power demand by 5 kW. Improvements have been done on the heating system as well. Atmospheric boilers have been replaced to condensing boilers. Sectioning of the heating system was undertaken, to obtain energy consumption data of each building separately. To reduce the heating energy demand, the façade has been insulated with External Thermal Insulation Composite System (ETICS / EIFS). The current windows in the administration building and sports pavilion will be replaced.
For the Sant Cugat Demo Site the analysis through the NewTREND platform separated into two parts, the basic mode district analysis and the advanced mode ID-3 school building analysis (Primary School Building + Administrational Building). The district analysis showed that there is capability to investigate building synergies. The following diagram shows the energy use of the buildings balanced by the proposed PV installation.
2 private houses in Les Planes, Spain – as building level case studies
The third demo site in Spain consists of 2 private houses in the Les Planes neighborhood; this neighborhood is located in the south of Sant Cugat municipality, surrounded by Collserola Natural Park, in a forest area. Most of the houses are single-family houses. This neighborhood has a low social and economic level.
The planned retrofitting activities on the demo site:
• Design cheap retrofit actions (EUR10’000 per house).
• To reduce the heating energy demand, windows have been replaced, the roof and the walls have been insulated.
• New mechanical ventilation system in bathroom and kitchen is installed.
The demo site was not analysed in detail with the NewTREND platform.
Bókay Garden in Budapest, Hungary – as district level case study
The Bókay Garden, one of the district’s public parks, is one of the largest and most significant green areas in the district. The garden is used as a multifunctional public park, it is a recreational / leisure centre. The 16-hectare garden serves as a community venue and provides many different sports facilities for residents. There is a “four-season” ski slope, a beach and indoor swimming pool, garden cinema, gym, football, basketball and tennis courts, as well as the Bókay Adventure Park in the park.
In May 2016 a new development concept was created for the Bókay Garden. This development concept outlined the following interventions:
• Demolition of old buildings, which are in bad conditions;
• Extension of the swimming pool and renovation of the sports field infrastructure;
• Development of an information centre.
The area has high potential in district scale synergies. Since the project is still in design phase, suggestions resulting from the simulation of the NewTREND tool can help to further improve the development plans. It is possible to create refurbishment scenarios for the district scale with the NewTREND platform. The district scale interventions consist of small to large scale energy generation systems that can lower the dependency of the Bókay garden from the energy grid and city scale supply systems. The potential interventions are: installation of power station, heat generator, CHP plant, PV panel, wind turbine, electricity storage and heating storage. For this distict a comparison of PV and CHP use were done. From the results it could be concluded that the PV installation is a more suitable technology for the district than the CHP plant as there is a constant need for the produced electricity and the heating need is present for a too short time period to have high running hours which is needed for an efficient CHP plant.
Bókay School in Budapest, Hungary – as building level case study
The school building can be found in the 18th district of Budapest, a few blocks away from Bókay Garden. Originally the building of the primary school building was a two-story building, in the 1980s a 3rd floor was built on top with a steeper pitched roof structure. The building has brick walls. The original exterior wall structure (ground floor + 1st floor walls) is a 70 cm thick traditional solid wall structure with small-sized brick wall. The extension (2nd floor) has narrower exterior walls: 30 cm (towards inner courtyard) and 45 cm thick (street facade).
One of the main goals of retrofitting the Bókay School was to reduce heating energy demand to reduce the operational costs. Therefore, the old windows and insulating the exterior walls was planned. The former has been done, triple-glazing plastic windows replaced the old ones. However, the latter intervention was cancelled, due to the historical nature of the building. Description of how the building became a protected building can be found in Deliverable 6.2. “Engagement of Stakeholders (Including Occupants)”. Other parts of the building envelope, like the ceilings above the top floor and above the unconditioned basement have been insulated. Photovoltaic panels have been installed on the roof to further reduce the operational costs.
The NewTREND platform was used to examine the energy use, comfort levels and operation costs of the building. The following diagram shows the main KPI results of the building analysis.
The results show that there is a need to act on the reduction of the energy demand of the building, which will cause further reduction of the operational energy cost. For this, different scenarios were created for analysis, including the actual realized retrofitting scenario. The analysis showed that the realized energy refurbishment increased the energy efficiency of the building, but there is still high potential for further improvements, from which the update of the heating system can cause the highest increase in efficiency.
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