Digital tools must help public housing with energy optimization

Using a tool to process building data, KAB has found three potential measures to lower heat consumption in two apartment blocks.

With a new data-based tool in hand, public housing companies can gain a detailed insight into the energy consumption in their buildings. This makes it easier to carry out a holistic, energy-efficient and indoor climate-optimal building renovation.

The software is a result of the Smart City Accelerator+ (SCA+) project, where Copenhagen Solutions Lab, DTU, KAB and a number of other players have collaborated to develop climate-friendly energy solutions.

Copenhagen Solutions Lab has contributed knowledge to the project and will also come out of it with new knowledge and contacts. "We would like to use the project as leverage to open up a collaboration with the public housing companies, to use data to optimize energy. We have succeeded in that. We have had good cooperation with KAB on this, and now we hope to be able to spread it to the rest of the public sector," says Christian Gaarde Nielsen, project manager at Copenhagen Solutions Lab.

Three main conclusions

The software itself goes by the name REBUS Connect°, and can be used to convert building data into knowledge about the causes of energy consumption. In this way, it can help operators determine whether high energy consumption is related to, for example, outdated windows, poor insulation, or whether it is due to a certain behavior of the residents.

REBUS Connect° has been tested in two of KAB's apartment blocks in Tingbjerg and Taastrupgaard, respectively, in Høje-Taastrup Municipality's residential buildings. Both areas face a major energy renovation, where, in addition to energy consumption, the focus must also be on general beautification and area renewal.

Based on the new information that REBUS Connect° has produced, KAB has drawn three main conclusions regarding potential measures to significantly reduce heat consumption or reduce operating costs. The ventilation loss makes up the vast majority of the heat loss.

On the basis of REBUS Connect°'s overall ideas, about data-based energy savings in construction, Copenhagen Municipality has prepared a pool that all public housing organizations with branches in Copenhagen can apply for. The purpose of the pool is to support the use of data for energy efficiency, by providing support for the purchase of energy monitoring systems. In this way, the public sector can get a better overview of their department's heat, water and electricity consumption, and act based on this to create real energy savings.

Cooperation across the strait

The software for energy renovation is just one of several areas of effort in the SCA+ project. Overall, 10 different actors in both Denmark and Sweden have worked with solutions and methods to strengthen the green transition in the entire Øresund region.

While one working group has therefore developed REBUS Connect°, another has worked on using data for optimized control of the district heating. At the same time, two other working groups have looked at new tools for energy planning at municipal level. On the Danish side, the focus has been, among other things, on engaging local energy communities in the conversion to a green energy supply. Copenhagen Solutions Lab has also played a minor role in that part of the project.

"We have supported with the knowledge of energy communities that we have in Copenhagen Municipality," explains Christian Gaarde Nielsen, project manager at Copenhagen's Solutions Lab.

SCA+ is supported by the EU program Interreg Öresund-Kattegat-Skagerrak.