Building life cycle costs are of central importance in regard to economics as an investor. If we were to try to reduce the subsequent life cycle costs of a building, then you may possibly have slightly higher investment initially, but there will be less maintenance and energy costs in the future. If you build a building which has certain sustainability criteria, then this will be profitable  and easily maintained in the long run. For the implementation of the vision of the Carbon Footprint.

It is our Duty to Make buildings future proof

Carbon Footprint

Make the most of your systems...

Current studies prove that the application of KNX technology can significantly reduce the energy budget.

The achievement of a higher comfort standard through bus systems in buildings has been a long known fact. The fully automated home is often mentioned in this context controlling all energy consuming building systems like lights, heat and ventilation to the users’ demands. Studies which were presented at the KNX Scientific Conference 2006 in Vienna showed additional potential of the building control system. To prove this, the University of Trento in Italy and the University of Bremen in Germany equipped buildings and rooms with KNX controls for the heating and lighting. The logged data was evaluated and a “normal” case was compared to the “KNX” operation. To explain in more detail, we will take a closer look at the KNX project at the University of Bremen. The following numbers and results are taken from the presentation of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred Mevenkamp, project manager and dean of the faculty of electrical engineering and information technology at the University of Bremen.

Energy Savings up to 50 %

About 33% of the entire energy consumption of residential and commercial buildings is used for heating. From a certain point on, this high energy demand can only be reduced with an intelligent control system - like KNX. In structurally weak buildings high energy savings can be achieved with constructive measures like a better building envelope insulation. In a list with the different energy demands of buildings types, building which are built to „passive building“ standards lead the way. The project of the University of Bremen is based on a modern building infrastructure, the centre for Information and Media Technology (ZIMT) in Bremen which was constructed in 2002. The building has a specific energy demand of 60-75 kWh/m²a. Prof. Dr.- Ing. Mevenkamp’s project group chose two identical class rooms for their experiments. One of them was equipped with standard thermostats for the heaters and the other one was equipped with KNX control. The KNX controlled room was installed with window switches, valves on the heaters, a room temperature control system and a heating meter with M-Bus interface and M-Bus-KNX-Gateway. The logged data of the comparison test covered the periods from the beginning of 2002 until the end of 2005. However, the rooms weren’t fully used until the middle of 2004. The result of the data analysis is very positive as the KNX controlled room could save up to 50% energy as compared to the room with standard installation.

Heating Comfort Remains

Critics who think the KNX system is slow reacting and could not provide the same heating comfort as a standard system which runs continuously are mistaken. As part of this test run, the average and actual room temperatures were also analyzed. The KNX room had 0.3°C higher average temperature even though the heating energy demand was just half of the room with the standard installation. The dynamic heating behavior of both rooms do not differ that much, which means the on/off curves are almost identical with regards to temperature and time. To increase the effectiveness and efficiency, the heating periods were controlled by a schedule, which dependedon the occupancy plan of the room. Therefore, no heating energy was wasted for a room that was not in use. But that was not all: savings potential of up to 50% was possible with the lighting system.

Energy Savings of the Lighting System

The yearly energy demand for the lighting system in the same buildingis 500MWh/a and is therefore higher than the heating energy demanding-485MWh/a. In addition energy costs of the University of Bremen could be reduced with the application of KNX controlled lights.