Smart Environment

The Municipality of Zaanstad has negotiated a new energy contract, that saves energy, stimulates the local production of renewables, and reduces energy costs substantially. The young energy company GreenChoice was selected as a contract partner for the coming years. The contract stipulates that the energy consumption of the Municipality will be reduced a full 15 % in the first two years. Greenchoice profits when a further reduction is realised, an innovative element in the contract that gives the energy company a clear interest in energy savings.

The core of Zaanstad’s showcase ‘REloadIT’ is innovative technology for clean mobility. This showase aims to optimise the exploitation of renewable energy and electric mobility. Zaanstad is an ‘energy pro-sumer’: our local, clean, renewable and affordable energy meets the energy consumption of our electric fleet.

Storage of solar heat in salt hydrates gives the opportunity to store solar heat during summer for use in winter. Heat storage systems based on salt hydrates have high energy storage densities and no thermal losses over time. This makes this technology very suitable for compact seasonal storage of solar heat in residential and commercial buildings.

The Zuidoostlob area in Amsterdam is home to multiple sources of waste heat – for example, numerous data centres and the Academic Medical Center (AMC). As part of the Amsterdam Energy Atlas, initial research has been conducted into the extent to which this waste heat can be used to satisfy local heating demands. The aim of this study is to provide an indication of the parties in the Zuidoostlob who would benefit from switching to a system using waste heat.All aspects of waste heat usage will be investigated. The initial focus is on the AMC, whereby a wide range of issues will be examined.

The main sewage lines contain sewage water at higher temperatures than ground water and thus heat pump the ground in cities. Thus, these sewers and the surrounding ground are very efficient heat sources. Using this energy sources with heat pumps provides high efficiency and helps to reduce the issue of heat islands in cities.

CELSIUS presents best practice solutions in the area of smart district heating and cooling by taking a holistic approach to overcome technical, social, political, administrative, legal and economic barriers. The project brings together excellence and expertise from five European cities with complementary energy baseline positions: Cologne, Genoa, London, Gothenburg and Rotterdam. The consortium includes technical expertise form leading energy utilities organization as well as international renowned research and innovation organisations.

QwikSense allows companies to measure the quality of work environments by providing custom-made devices that track CO2 levels, temperature, humidity, air pressure and other relevant factors. Based on that data, relevant suggestions can be done to improve the environment, and save energy in the process.

DESIGO is an integrated building management system that covers all your requirements – both now and in the future. With Desigo CC, you can control and optimize all the systems in the building: heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, shading, room automation, energy management, and fire safety as well as security services like video surveillance and intrusion protection. Desigo CC adapts to your needs and can be used to manage multiple systems as well as individual services.

Building Index is an essential tool for cost-effective operation of buildings and facilities and is a modernization and new investment planning for determining strategic goals for energy efficiency. The top product of Building Index is the building control. The energy management system of buildings is automated for collecting consumer data and summary and it may be suitable for the building's energy consumption per meter, per regulate consumer, but also for the entire building.

In the context of so-called smart grids, buildings are expected to integrate in a cooperative manner and to expose their currently unused flexibility of operations (shiftable loads, load shedding, duty-cycling, etc.), supported by building automation and information technology. Building optimization and grid optimization, typically decoupled in existing solutions, shall be harmonized.