"Energy Saving Now", possibilities of rapid changes of our energy consumption in buildings by using the Internet for education, information, promotion and communication.
Falk, Håkan - Isfält, Engelbrekt
Energy Saving Now (http://EnergySavingNow.com)
Abstract
"Energy Saving Now", is a not-for-profit Web site venture by a small group of experienced specialists.
It is hard to find any issues more important to mankind than Energy Saving and proper Management of the world's energy resources. It is nearly impossible to contemplate any kind of sustainable living, without a very efficient use of our available energy resources. This is the inspiration for the founders of the web site "Energy Saving Now", who have been active in the field of saving energy resources since the 60's. We believe that our knowledge and experiences offer a substantial contribution in the efforts of energy saving. As proof of this, we have contributed to thousands of building construction projects, and there is now a new Building Standards Code in Sweden.
Who we are
We are three persons who have been involved in energy saving in building constructions during a large part of our professional lives. I am Håkan Falk and the author of this presentation and responsible for the WEB site "Energy Saving Now". Co-founders for Energy Saving Now are Engelbrekt Isfält and Theodor (Teddy) Rosenthal.
My education is in business and engineering with experience in fields like Building Acoustics, Energy Simulations in Buildings, IT technology, CAD systems and Computer Networking. Since the end of the 60's, I have had the honor to know and work with Teddy Rosenthal and Engelbrekt Isfält. Both are well-known in Sweden, for their work within the field of energy saving and comfort in buildings.
Engelbrekt Isfält, Ph.D., is one of the most recognized persons in Sweden within the field of simulation of climate and energy transmissions in building constructions. His entire professional career has been involved in research and education at the Royal Technical Institute of Stockholm (KTH), Sweden. He is also recognized internationally as an expert in his field. His stature within the research community is unique and his work is essential to Sweden’s international reputation as the most advanced energy saving country in the world. As a recognition for this, he was one of the recipients of the Swedish Energy Saving Award in 1990.
Teddy Rosenthal, who is a graduate from KTH, has also been working most of his career with computer simulations and calculations of systems in building constructions. Teddy and I started in the beginning of the 70's a consultant company for computer supported design of systems for buildings. We established from the beginning a close cooperation with the KTH and Engelbrekt Isfält. We are proud of our participation in the development of computer programs and our work with supporting designs of energy efficient buildings in Sweden.
The importance of the Internet
History
The Internet is today around 35 years old and was for many years the exclusive domain of the research and education communities. The Internet at this time was a breakthrough for the community it served and had great importance in the exchange of information and ideas. It is quite possible that the decision by the Clinton administration to make it public will go into history as one of the most important decisions in modern times. During the last 8 years we have seen an explosion in our possibilities to communicate and inform on a global level. The freedom and availability of information and the ease of publication have multiplied many times.
Possibilities
As the Internet looks today, we have a unique opportunity to reach an important community with information, knowledge and education. The Internet is well positioned to impact on the consumption levels of energy in the world. The same countries and communities that consume 80% of the world’s energy resources, have a very high percentage of the population connected to the Internet. They are educated communities, which can understand quite complex technical questions. These are the people who would be able to achieve large energy savings and to influence others to do the same.
What future generations face
Current and future generations must start to deal with a lot of problems that were neglected during the last century. We must start to deal with this in an efficient way, in order to minimize the effects of,
Many energy crises
The major volume of our current energy reserves is not economically extractable at current price levels. It will take a doubling or tripling of the price levels, to make the reserves available. The recent crises and their impact on the world economy will only escalate in the future.
Instability and conflict scenarios
We have started a very frightening race against time. The reason given for Japan’s entry in the Second World War, was the US energy blockade. At that time, the US was the largest producer of fossil fuel and blockaded deliveries to Japan. It is easy to see many risks for similar outcomes in today’s World. The interests and existence of the Industrial Nations are threatened by the dependence on cheap fossil energy resources. Developing Countries are also threatened by possible lack of availability of fossil energy resources. The competitiveness between economies in the world is dependent on the availability, cost, pollution control and usage of fossil energy.
Natural and man-made disasters
We are already experiencing a rise of weather related disasters, blamed on man-made changes of the climate.
Stabilization of population growth
One very important factor is a stabilization of the world population. To be able to produce energy and food, the population growth must be stabilized. If this is not dealt with, it will create very ugly scenarios of conflicts and diseases. In the Industrial Countries the limitation of population growth is a voluntary result of higher living standards and education. In the Developing Countries, it is only China that is dealing with it, but in a way that infringes on human rights and that is against the opinions of populations in Industrial Countries. If we will deal with this and keep democracies, methods must be developed to rise education and living standards. Energy supply will be a key factor to accomplish this. It is maybe not the whole answer to this very difficult question, but a mismanagement of energy use and production will add in making it several multiples more difficult.
What we (Energy Saving Now) can do,
Sharing of valuable experiences
We offer over 30 years experience from simulations of construction projects that have proved the feasibility to work with better design principles in thousands of buildings.
Sharing of valuable tools
We are looking at the possibility of making our simulation program BRIS available for education and design. We also intend to make the source code available to qualified developers.
Participating in planning and implementation of education efforts
We are prepared to participate in efforts to develop more relevant building codes, re-education plans and new education standards. Very interesting projects could be developed such as implementation and improvements on Swedish style building codes including standards which consider more parameters than U-values and air temperatures.
Publishing of material
We will make material written for a broader public available trough our web site "Energy Saving Now". We will also offer this material to other web sites and off line publishing.
Chinese walls
If we are going to find any solutions for energy that even come close to sustainability, we have to tear down some Chinese walls (popular expression describing protection of an area of interest or isolation of a problem). We have to do this fast and find solutions in the following areas since our procrastination in dealing with it already has caused too much delay.
Research versus broad education.
What’s good versus what sells.
What we know versus what we do.
Public politics versus what is necessary.
Commercial interests versus what is necessary.
Energy consumption in building construction
The most common calculations and design principles are based on very rough simplifications and steady state conditions. Old knowledge, developed through hundreds of years of experience, has during a few decades been replaced by principles that are based on constant temperature and that the energy needed always is proportional to the temperature difference outside - inside. (This factor of proportionality is commonly named the "U-value")
Comfort criteria
Current comfort criteria
The common comfort criteria are based on specified air temperatures and that those should be kept with small deviation.
Needs more than constant air temperature
During low activity level, the body uses air temperature (24%), radiation (50%) and vaporization (22%) to maintain its temperature. During variations in activity levels, it will try to compensate with larger use of vaporization. The body assumes a dynamic environment and feels more comfortable with some deviations of the parameters.
Comfort criteria should therefore as a minimum consider both radiation and air temperature. They can also accept larger variations in air temperature than current philosophies.
Design Methods
The reality in the current design methods can easily be exposed.
In an office of 10 sqm built with today’s building codes, the energy losses are around 10 W/K. During a working day the load for lighting, machines and people can be 350-600 Watt. The sun through the window contributes with 700-1,000 Watt. In current use of calculations of steady state conditions, the temperature rise would be 135 ºC. It would be very difficult for a person to survive more than a few minutes. Common sense and experiences must tell us that this is not the case. But we are still dimensioning the HVAC system and controls for such a case. It leads to a common over-dimensioning between 2-5 times of what is necessary and an enormous waste of energy.
Needs more than U-values.
To be able to achieve designs that are correct and energy efficient, the dimensioning calculations must consider correct methods for energy transmissions, comfort criteria and interaction with HVAC systems. Energy transmission must consider type of building materials, accumulation in the construction and movement of energy. Comfort criteria must consider air temperatures and emission factors. The HVAC system and its control strategies must be dynamically coupled to the construction.
Control Methods
Current control methods
In common design and control strategies for HVAC systems today, space temperature is prescribed and heating and/or cooling are supplied in the required capacity to maintain this temperature. This is neither a correct philosophy regarding the dynamics of the building nor it is relevant to the body’s feeling of comfort.
Needs more than steady state assumptions
Large gains can be achieved through an approach of working with the thermal mass of the building, trying to keep it within bounds with gentle nudges at appropriate times, rather than attempting to overcome the large load that would develop when the mass is allowed to approach maximum set point bounds as in current practice. The potential benefits of successful application of these principles are immense. Many application of these principles in Sweden have shown that capacities can be reduced to less than half of those required under current design practice.
Saving potentials
The energy saving potentials are very large (50 to 80%), with changes in the current design and control methods. Simulations show that nearly all zone loads at any particular instant comes from the solid surfaces. Thus if these surfaces are kept within comfort range, the air temperature will "take care of itself," (more or less), and loads will be small. Many application of these principles in Sweden have shown that energy capacities can be reduced to less than half of those required under current practice and peak demands will show even larger reductions. The current practices leads to coordinated calls for energy at the same time and from all the buildings, regardless of differences in construction. Better local and central solutions can be found than "blackouts" and those can be both implemented rapidly and at low cost.
Energy Resources
We will not go trough an inventory of energy sources here, but must establish some facts and assumptions. Looking at different energy sources today and their use, we estimate that the average efficiency for our energy production is around 40%. This is based on the high electricity usage, traditional engines and combustion processes.
Fossil fuel
Almost all research is concentrated on raising efficiency levels and making ideas from 80 years back viable. We can probably see some breakthroughs on fuel cells, which make them widely usable. It is also possible that we could see some breakthroughs on fusion power. What is very questionable is if it could be widely available and in use within the timeframes needed. Possibilities exist, however, to double average efficiency level during the next 20 to 40 years.
It is easy to see the reasoning behind the US plan to expand the use of fission power, as a stopgap for energy crises. It does buy the US time, with some calculated risk of not being able to buy waste storage outside of the nation. But it is extremely difficult to consolidate this with a relaxed attitude to energy conservation and reductions on the demands on energy efficiency. This, combined with resistance to reduction of pollution, leaves the current energy plans incomplete and almost useless.
Any energy plan in a modern Industrial Country must forcefully deal with energy conservation and pollution, as Sweden had to do after the referendum against nuclear power around 25 years ago. The Swede consumes pro capita 1/4 of the Canadian, with nearly the same climate, geographical spread and standard of living. The Swede consumes 1/3 of the average American, despite the advantages that US have in average climate conditions. The Swede consumes around half of the Californian, despite that California is in the forefront of energy saving in the US. Canada and US are in the top of the 20 list of pollution per capita, Sweden is not on that list, despite the high position of world economies. We have sample of US office buildings that consumes 800 kWh/sqm and year and comparable office buildings in Sweden with only 70 kWh/sqm and year.
Renewable energy
We do not want to take up to much space here, but want to present the following thoughts about solar energy. Other renewable energy sources like wind, water and biomass will reveal similar properties.
Solar energy
The World’s energy consumption today could be covered by the energy from the Sun on a square of 250 x 250 km. This is an often-used calculation. It sounds very good but what does that mean in reality?
This means 62,500 million solar panels of 1 sqm with an efficiency of 100%! If it came from today’s PV cells with only 10% efficiency we need 620,500 million solar panels. The area occupied would be the same size as the whole of Sweden. This without considering the needs for storage of energy and it’s own efficiency. If that is considered, we need 1,000,000 million solar panels and an area as large as the whole of Spain. (All kind of Solar panels will be a fantastic business in the future whichever way we turn.) Since the current estimate is that we will double our energy consumption by the year 2010, we would need 2,000,000 million solar panels.
If we can raise the efficiency of PV cells to the same level as passive solar panels, we need 350,000 million solar panels and 700.000 million solar panels year 2010. This makes my example somewhat more realistic, since we do not need PV cells for hot water production.
If we start to use energy in an efficient way for cover and food preparation, the energy consumption can be reduced by about 50 to 80% and the global consumption with 30 to 40%. We then need 150,000 million solar panels and 300.000 million solar panels year 2010.
Conclusion
The best we can do for the next 10 to 20 years is to raise the average efficiency of energy production to around 60-70%. We can also improve the efficiency in energy consumption and lower it with 50%. Some small expansion of fission power might be necessary, but should be done restrictively in conjunction with other efforts. This will offset the expected rise in energy consumption and population growth. It will also buy time for further development and implementation of energy efficiency and alternative energy sources.
Shifts of energy sources to sustainable ones, would probably be around 30% during the same period, but must be preceded by improvements in the use of energy. It is a very large dependence on efficient use of energy in buildings. This would be a large step towards sustainability and create a rise in living standards for developing countries, which would support population growth control in democracies.
The above is possible with known technologies and proven policies. What is needed is a worldwide coherent effort to speed up the necessary education and implementation processes. In this, we believe that the Internet could play a crucial role, together with joint efforts of support by all parties in our society and we hope that our efforts can grow with more participants.
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