Introduction
SUSTAINABILITY
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”1 World
Commission on Environment and Development (WCED).
At the EU level, 49% of the population lives in densely populated areas (at least 500
inhabitants/km²)2 and it is recognised that the increase of the urbanisation will continue to
develop over the next years and decades.
Cities and urban areas will only be competitive, green and liveable when they are smart; this
will require new technologies and approaches as well as the upgrading of old or obsolete
systems in the field of Buildings, Homes, Lighting, Safety & Security, infrastructures (grids),
Transportation, Ports & harbours, Health & living, Water & waste water and more largely
public services. Smart cities combine competitiveness, sustainability and quality of living,
the three elements being intimately entwined. A smart city will be a “System of Smart
Systems”.
Buildings account for 40% of Europe’s energy consumption. EU legislation has set out an
ambitious legal framework for greening European buildings. Improving the energy
performance and efficiency of buildings is determined by a large number of decision makers.
There are millions of building owners, specifiers, developers, architects and project
designers...
Reducing energy demand of buildings has the potential to save taxpayers money while
making their homes more comfortable and safe; it has the potential to create new jobs and
the pave the way to sustainable growth.
Renovation is key to avoid laying a burden on future generations or in the words of
Brundtland: to avoid “compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.”
1
2
Brundtland Report, 1987
Source : Eurostat
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A. SUSTAINABLE EUROPEAN BUILDINGS
We are facing two main challenges for making buildings sustainable:
1) An environmental need: reducing the buildings’ impact on climate change
2) A social need: adapting residential buildings to changing demographics and living
patterns.
1. Climate change Challenge
To address the challenge of climate change it will require improved energy performance of
buildings, improved energy performance of the transport systems to and from those
buildings, energy production from renewable resources.
Buildings can contribute to those sustainability needs by:
•
A more energy efficient electrical installation
•
Energy efficient lighting systems
•
Energy efficient heating and cooling
•
Energy efficient electrical appliances
•
Charging stations for Electric Vehicles
•
The integration of household renewables
•
…
Solutions for improving sustainability such as…
•
Heat pumps
•
Integrated renewables
•
EV charging stations
•
Well-equipped working spaces
•
Technology assisted living for the elderly
… result in a much higher demand of the electrical installation.
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2. Societal needs
In Europe, the ageing population represents one of the most extraordinary social
transformations which has characterized and will continue to characterize European society.
The number of people 65+ will increase significantly over the next 20 years. Technology can
assist them in living in their own dwelling for a longer time.
New societal needs are appearing due to these changing demographics, the ageing
population and living patterns such as the increase of single person households and people
increasingly working from home.
The key element is therefore to adapt dwellings as to improve their energy performance (by
integrating energy efficient applications and renewable energy) whilst giving an answer to
the current and future societal needs:
• Active energy management of the home
• Technology assisted living for the elderly
• Flexible homes that can suit all ages and family compositions
• Homes with well-equipped working spaces
B. SMART HOME
In the BPIE report3, an estimated 25 billion square meters of useful floor space in Europe out
of 75% is residential. In these 75% residential building stock is composed of 54% single family
houses.
To make a home become smart does not only mean require being connected to the Internet,
having remote access and control or a smart meter. What makes a home ‘Smart’ is the
possibility to have devices that can elaborate input data, coming both from inside and
outside the home, and transform them into useful information to be used by end users or
by other products and devices that may be present in the home.
Smart Homes can thus provide benefits in several areas like active energy management,
technology assisted living, flexible homes with well equipped home office, the integration of
electric vehicles:
3
Europe’s buildings under the microscope, BPIE report October 2011.
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1. Active energy management of the home
We consider that better informed consumers will enhance a more responsible
behaviour towards their energy consumption, whilst simultaneously increase the
interest and use of new technologies and renewable energy sources.
This is equally confirmed in the European Commission’s Communication on Smart
Grids, consumers tend to change behaviour and save energy if exposed to their
energy consumption. As we do not expect consumers to constantly monitor for
external input and manually act on the product, a smart home with the right kind of
devices able to anticipate information on energy consumption, can play a key role in
increasing the level of awareness of consumers and thereby in contributing to a
reduction in energy consumption. It is also expected that load shifting and
differentiated tariffs can lead to saving energy costs for the user.
A Smart home equipped with products capable to shift consumption and provide
feedback to end users on their real time energy consumption can reduce system
costs, and potentially change the character of the energy consumed. Shifting energy
consumption off peaks or when renewable energy becomes available can greatly
contribute to the reduction of primary energy consumption and of CO2 emissions.
Smart Homes require smart users, empowered by their ability to manage their
energy usages through monitoring, visibility and understanding of their energy
consumption & carbon foot print, enabling energy savings and providing full
(including remote) control of their comfort and safety. This is heavily dependent on
the creation of an interoperability system which allow Home building electronic
systems present in the smart home to communicate with the external world.
Information and communication technologies (ICT), and especially software, are the
embedded link to ensure interoperability of the different solutions available to be
used by the end user. The Smart Grid technologies now available allow the
management and the integration of the home /building performances.
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2. Technology Assisted Living at home
The ageing population with an increasing number of people 65+ will increase
significantly over the next 20 years. Technology can assist them in living in their own
dwelling for a longer time. Systems include electric buggies, electric stair lifts,
orientation lighting… Older people also have an increased need for fire alarms and
electronic security systems. Moreover elderly people often live in older houses that
were not renovated in recent times.
The hope of living longer alongside the increase in the number of elderly citizens
represents a challenge for Member States: they are in front of a radical social change
facing the need to redefine welfare policy objectives. The cost for pensions, health
and long-term care is expected to increase with total expenditure tripling in the next
decades. Development of electronic based services can help achieving substantial
savings. Early patient discharge from hospital due to the introduction of mobile
health monitoring would save a lot of money.
The home, seen as the place of reference for the life of senior citizens, where they
carry out those daily routines which are considered fundamental such as sleeping,
taking care of personal hygiene, preparing and eating meals, and feeling safe and
secure. The home must also satisfy some complimentary needs, needs which
increase the quality of life and the psychological well being of the elderly person.
To maintain elderly or disabled people at home, much of the same technology and
equipment is used as home automation for security, entertainment and energy
conservation but more tailored to elderly and disabled individuals.
3. Flexible homes, well equipped home office and electric vehicles
Dwellings change owner increasingly frequent. Families have other needs than
singles and young people have other needs than older people. Homes need to be
organised in a flexible way and able to respond to all ages and family compositions.
Working from home is increasingly popular and avoids transport energy. It requires a
well-equipped home office:
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•
Sufficient sockets: computer, printer, external hard disk, smart phone loader,
modem…
•
Broadband internet connection and multimedia network
•
Protection of equipment against lightning strikes and EMC problems
Moreover the expected development and growth of the e-vehicle in Europe will
equally require appropriate infrastructure in homes and needs adaptations in the
home for smart and safe charging.
C. CURRENT SITUATION
1. Ageing housing stock
The European housing stock is ageing. A substantial share of the stock in Europe is older than 50
years with many buildings in use today that are hundreds of years old. More than 40% of our
residential buildings have been constructed before the 1960s when energy building regulations were
very limited. Countries with the largest components of older buildings include the UK, Denmark,
Sweden, France, Czech Republic and Bulgaria. A large boom in construction in 1961-1990 is also
evident through our analysis where the housing stock, with a few exceptions, more than doubles in
this period.4
15%
50%
<1971
1971 - 1990
1991 -
35%
Construction year of dwellings in Europe (27 member states)
(sources: IGNES:based on NCB&ECB calculation, BPIE survey 2010, European Copper Institute, G&P estimates, European
Environment Agency, OTB Research institute)
4Europe’s
buildings under the microscope, BPIE report October 2011.
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Many of them have not yet undergone a renovation of the electrical installation.
Today, the majority of the installation of buildings in Europe, especially residential building,
is not up-to-date and even not according to actual European standards. Indeed, if a building
is renovated, the focus is on energy efficiency/-saving which means that the heating
installation is renewed, the windows will be changed and the walls of the building will be
insulated. But in most cases, the electrical installation remains untouched.
Moreover, since the 1980th, significant changes in the standards for electrical installations were
made. The protection of people against electric shock was increased significantly by making the use
of RCD mandatory for the electrical installation. Installations older than 1980, usually do not have
such RCD’s.
2. Electricity consumption
The significant increase in use of appliances in households is evidnt through the steady increase in
electricity consumption (38% over the last 20 years)5.
In 1960, the market penetration of the following electrical appliances was:





Electric cooker
washing machine
Radio
TV
Small electric equipment
~ 50 %,
< 25 %
~ 90 %
< 15 %
< 10 %
In the 1980th, more, new and powerful products were connected (numbers in %):
5Source:
Eurostat
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Big electrical equipment 1980
Washing machine
88
Dryer
8
Dish washer
21
Electric cooker
77
Exhaust hood
27
Refrigerator
95
Freezer
49
Microwave
1
Small electrical equipment
Toaster
70
Coffee machine
72
Electric iron
95
Mixer
82
All-purpose slicer
33
Vacuum cleaner
94
2005
95
38
61
83
66
99
54
69
88
95
98
92
61
97
All these devices were connected to existing installations. Today, the old installations are more and
more already operating at the acceptable limit, or even above.
3. The French case
In France, on 1 January 2009 a new regulation made the inspection of electrical installations
mandatory in case of change of ownership and if the installation is at least 15 years old.
After one year implementation and f-after the first year of inspections, it turned out that
72% of the installations violated at least three out of five minimum safety requirements 6.
6 The five minimum safety requirements:
1) An appropriate and accessible main isolator
2) All live parts sufficiently insulated
3) An appropriate earthing network
4) An appropriate fuse or circuit breaker on every circuit to protect against over current
5) In bathrooms: suited equipment, all socket protected by a 30 mA RCD, appropriate equipotential bonding
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In 90% of those cases, the owner expressed the intention to improve the installation to meet
safety requirements.
But the new regulation in France has had also an important impact in figures:
•
400,000 inspections annually, or about 1/50 of the dwellings, € 60,000,000 turnover
( each dwelling inspected each 50 years)
•
230,000 renovations annually, € 440,000,000 turnover
•
7,200 jobs created
•
3,000 electricians trained
(Extrapolation from Promotelec study, 2009)
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D. CONCLUSIONS
In 2010 the European Commission committed in the ELECTRA Communication to a study to
assess how to improve the safety of electrical installations while increasing their energy
efficiency and enabling safe integration of renewable energy sources7. This study has
unfortunately never been carried out by the European Commission!
Technical solutions for improving sustainability are available and will result in a much higher
demand of the electrical installation. Therefore improving the sustainability of buildings will
be impossible without first upgrading the electrical installation. To implement those
solutions, the safety, capacity, peak power, and control facilities of current electrical
installations are largely insufficient.
This is particularly true if the current safety standards are to be maintained. On top of its
indirect contribution to sustainability, an upgraded electrical installation will also lead to
direct energy savings (average 5%) as old installations have 4 – 6% higher energy losses.
1. Future Prosumer and big loads for electrical installation
New and even more powerful loads will be connected to a big extend: heat pump and
electric vehicle are very big consumers of electrical power. Charging an e-car with 230 V and
13 A means an equivalent of 270 energy saving lamps of 11 Watts. Nobody would connect
270 lamps to one single socket outlet!
New producers are also connected to existing installation. Photovoltaic, block heat and
power stations and in future fuel cells. These devices will also be connected to the existing
switch boards, if no additional requirements will be available.
To connect these prosumer (producer and consumer), the electrical installation has to be
checked and updated according European Standards.
7
COM(2009)594 final, For a competitive and sustainable electrical engineering industry in the European Union
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2. Requirements for the electrical installation coming from social aspects
Taking into account the future age pyramid, the electrical installation will have to handle the
future requirements to enable the residents to stay longer and save in their home.
Basic requirements to enable the future functionalities regarding these demands (e.g.
communication system for sensors and actuators) have to be elaborated in standardisation
and must be installed if a building is renovated.
3. Maintain employment and job creation
Maintain the employment rate and even create jobs is in this economic difficult times, an
additional challenge.
By extrapolating the economic impact figures of safety inspections of the electrical installation in
dwellings in France, this objective means roughly for the entire EU:
€ 19,000,000,000 of additional annual turnover
315,000 jobs created
The FEEDS group draws the attention of the Commission on this urgent and
important topic for sustainable, societal and safety reasons!
We therefore highly recommend the Commission to take the following graph
in all its aspects into serious consideration and take all necessary measures
towards Member States to implement on a compulsory basis the inspection
of the existing electrical installations in dwellings.
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Safety inspections for sustainability
Buildings ready for
changing demographics
and living patterns
Buildings ready to fight
climate change
+ 5% direct energy savings
315,000 jobs
created in the
electricity sector
€ 19,000,000,000
additional turnover
for electricity sector
March 2012.
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