The conference “Optimized energy consumption (storage, monitoring, industrial design)”, organized by energynomics.ro on Thursday, on April 26th, in Cluj-Napoca, was the second event in this year’s Communication Campaign “Energy Efficiency for big results”. Over 50 experts in Cluj-Napoca have participate at the debates provoked by seven top speakers, representatives of ANRE, MET România Energy, EnergoBit, Eaton România, Schneider Electric România, Lisscom Brașov and Bjorn Heizung.

Florin Roșian, coordinator of ANRE office in Cluj-Napoca, outlined the legislative provisions on industrial energy efficiency, in the context of the European and national framework for climate and energy policies.

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He insisted on the operational programs available, pointing out that the new financial perspective 2014-2020 provides a new approach to strategic programming for cohesion policy.

Eaton – storage for all types of clients

In his presentation, Cătălin Crivineanu, Partner Account Manager, Power Quality Department, Eaton Romania mentioned the multiple advantages of the electricity storage solutions.

Savings

• Peak shaving
• Security of supply
• Load shifting / Demand management

Optimized activity

• Renewable energy integration
• Backup power supply
• Compliance with regulations

Generate revenue

• By adjusting the frequency
• By supplying energy at request

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF CĂTĂLIN CRIVINEANU

Cătălin Crivineanu insisted that Eaton’s solutions are scalable, from the household level to the largest generating parks from renewable sources.

“In Romania we are at the beginning, but we have all the solutions in our portfolio,” said Cătălin Crivineanu. “For a typical home, the storage solution can be placed on a wall of resistance, costs 4,000-4,200 euros and comes with a 5-year warranty.” Such solutions are sold, especially for homes connected to the grid, where the customer can evacuate and sell its surplus production to the network, thus substantially improving the return on investment, explained the Eaton representative.

MET România Energy – energy efficiency tested in real projects

Andrei Bucur, Business Development Manager at MET Romania Energy presented the smart residential area of Popasului Residence, in Northern Bucharest, where each house was equipped with photovoltaic panels and smart home system, meant to ease the life of the user and at the same time to improve the energy consumption. “Photovoltaic panels come with a significant contribution to the heating of the house and a low cost in the utilities bill,” explained Andrei Bucur, who continued: “The smart house means more than automation and remote control of the artificial lighting, the air conditioning system or draperies”. In the case study presented, MET designed and implemented a connection between the heating system and the photovoltaic panels, so that in winter, the heating system starts on air conditioning and heats the building until the batteries are consumed. From that point on, the system shuts down the power supply and starts the system on natural gas, which is cheaper than electricity, for the moment.

Such an investment is less than 10% of the initial cost of building a new house, and the systems presented can also be used in existing buildings as their installation is minimally invasive, said Andrei Bucur.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF ANDREI BUCUR

With regard to energy storage, it is worth highlighting that technological solutions are being developed not only abroad. There are companies that produce here in Romania power generation and storage systems for energy. “Not only do others have access to such technologies, not just others have ideas and make investments in this sector,” insisted Andrei Bucur as an introduction to the partnership with Stratum Enclosures, a company which integrates renewable energy generation (wind, solar) with battery storage and power generators as a backup system. The systems are produced at the Bucharest plant and 99% of the production goes to export.

EcoStruxure – an answer to all the technological trends of the moment

Dumitru Vaida, Segments Sales Manager Schneider Electric Romania, briefly outlined the relevant Schneider Electric portfolio in terms of energy efficiency. With 144,000 employees in over 100 countries, Schneider Electric present itself as a global specialist in energy management and automation, providing innovative technologies for customers in fosr main segments: buildings, data centers, industry and infrastructure.

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Dumitru Vaida insisted on five trends coming with the Internet of Things – IOT industrial revolution.

Mobility We all have a smart device which makes communication pervasive. It makes the user-experience easy and rich. It allows for user-recognition – the buildings, machines etc. recognizes me because of my mobile device.

The cloud The aggregation of data on affordable and secure cloud make possible sharing the data. “The utility, the facility manager, the contractor, the end-user, and the manufacturer, now, can all work at the same time using the same database to improve the efficiency of the building”, said Dumitru Vaida. „It also means that large companies can have the specialists, regardless of their location, manage their facilities and assets anywhere, remotely.”

Pervasive sensing The costs of sensors both embedded and external to physical products is at the core of technology value with IoT.

Analytics Putting historical process data into context with new sensor data coming from things – combined with application development advancements enables what we call a next generation approach to advanced analytics. Without advanced analytics the data from IoT is just big data.

Finally, said Dumitru Vaida, there is the necessity for cyber security as we move to more standard open IP-based industrial network connectivity and protocols.

Ștefan Opriș: Invest in energy efficiency, better than in generation and transport!

In his speech, Ștefan Opriș, Marketing Manager LISSCOM addressed a common mistake made even by academics and energy professionals: “Many people mistake the reduction of energy consumption with energy efficiency. If you change the incandescent light bulb with LED bulbs, you get a reduction in consumption. Efficiency means that LED bulbs work only when we need them, at the specific intensity that brings us the comfort we want”, explained Ștefan Opriș.

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The Lisscom representative has called for the public discussion to change its focus from the investments needed for energy generation and transport to the investments needed for reducing energy waste. “We found out from public authorities that at the national level, the thermal energy losses amount to 40%! Why invest in new production capacities and not reduce losses, with lower costs and with great energy efficiency benefits”, Ștefan Opriş pointed out.

LISSCOM Braşov provided the concept, execution, assembly, service and maintenance of a city-level system for the management of thermal energy in 73 buildings (schools, universities, dormitories, canteens, sports halls, kindergartens, block of flats) coordinated from a single data center by a single operator. The system allowed for significant savings on energy consumption, but also for administrative savings.

In partnership with the German company Gesellschaft Für Regelungstechnik (GFR), Lisscom has achieved remarkable performance that fully justifies the initial investment, explained Stefan Opriş:

• reducing natural gas consumption: 20 ÷ 26%
• reducing electricity consumption: 20 ÷ 30%
• reduction of water consumption: 10 ÷ 70%
• reduction of the premature wear of equipment: 20%
• reducing maintenance costs: 15%
• reducing production losses (perishable goods: 8%

Radiant panels from Bjorn Heizung

Mihai Măerean, Operations Manager in Romania from Bjorn Heizung presented the advantages of chilling / heating solutions that meet both the needs of residential areas, be it new buildings or historical buildings, as well as the requirements from office buildings and industrial spaces. “Most of the energy consumption of buildings – between 45 and 50% – goes to HVAC systems,” Mihai Măerean said. Therefore, a lower temperature of the thermal agent contributes significantly to reducing heating costs, with no compromises in comfort. In addition, Bjorn Heizung panels are 80% slimmer than conventional solutions, are 80% lighter and come with 10 years warranty.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF MIHAI MĂEREAN

“For a real estate developer, our chilled ceiling and radiant floor heating systems mean a significant gain in vertical space that can equate to another level, as well as much improved execution speed,” Mihai Măerean stressed.

Digital Energy Revolution – Opportunities for Romanian Companies

The series of presentations was concluded by Carmen Neagu, Executive Director of EnergoBit, who started from the observation that energy is dominated by political decision and technological developments.

“Energy efficiency has become a topic of utmost interest in public policies only when we have understood that the environmental footprint of the energy industry is contributing to climate change with severe consequences,” said Carmen Neagu. ” By the end of the year, Romania has to present its National Energy and Climate Plan. Who works on it and what happens to this document, one that will be the basis for future investments and future actions from us all?” rhetorically asked Carmen Neagu, stating that technological progress continues irrespective of local political decisions.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF CARMEN NEAGU

We need national strategies for the Romanian companies to get involved in new technological and business niches, whether we look at hydraulic fracturing, battery storage, artificial intelligence, renewable generation, e-cars or blockchain. “Energy efficiency is an area that would allow Romania to attract large global companies – as it happened in the automotive industry, but also to capitalize on Romanian expertise and intelligence through partnerships with such global companies,” Carmen Neagu proposed.

“Romania is still in the yesterday paradigm based on system built around a central power station”, Carmen Neagu warned, “while more and more, the world is moving to the paradigm of tomorrow – distributed / on-site generation with fully integrated network management”.

“It is essential to understand what is happening around us in order to build an economy that relies less on consumption, but linked to major global trends”, concluded Mrs. Neagu.

Over 50 representatives from Aon România, Ardealul, CEZ România, Clasic Prod Mex, Control Data Systems, E.ON, Eaton, Energo Esco, EnergoBit, Energy Report, Fondul Român pentru Eficiența Energiei, Hidrocentrale Sebeș, INCDTIM, Industria Sârmei Câmpia Turzii, ITIM-CJ, Kronospan, Nova Power & Gas, RATCJ, Ridgid Emerson, Schneider Electric, STEAG Energie, TELEKOM România, Unicarm New Energy, Universal Transport Schmitz, Voltamper attended the presentations and participated in discussions.

The event was organized by energynomics.ro with the support of our partners: Bjorn Heizung, Eaton România, EnergoBit, Lisscom Brașov, MET România Energy, Ridgid, Stratum Enclosures, Schneider Electric Romania.

Following the success of the 2017 initiative, energynomics.ro unrolls its second media campaign for energy efficiency across the country! The campaign will run in the Romanian language, under the title  “Eficiență energetică pentru rezultate care contează“ – („Energy Efficiency for Big Results”) – a name which aligns concepts, information and solutions aimed to promote energy efficiency among the targeted audiences..

This is a communication campaign aimed at informing and educating the decision makers in the Romanian public authorities and companies – from Start- Ups and SMEs to the largest enterprises. The assigned objective is to positively influence their attitudes and behavior regarding the need for and the benefits of implementing in their organizations the energy audits and the needed actions and technologies for increased energy efficiency.

Participation

Access to the conference is open to all professionals in the Romanian energy industry and related sectors, based on the nominal confirmation from energynomics.ro. You are welcomed to write us at office [at] energynomics.ro and ask for an invitation!

Between April and June 2017 we scheduled three conferences aimed to highlight the need for and the benefits of implementing energy audits, with examples of actions and technologies for increased energy efficiency.

Conferences scheduled in 2018 within the Communication Campaign “Energy Efficiency for big results”

• May 22, Timișoara
• July 4, Constanța
• October 17, Craiova
• November 14, Oradea
• March 14, Iași – follow-up article

Themes

• Public Sector – Exemplary role of public bodies’ buildings and purchasing by public bodies
• Metering and Billing – Operational, as well as potential specific technical topics
• Financing – The conditions required for the successful establishment of financing facilities
• Energy Services – Provisions to stimulate the development of the energy services market; energy storage; energy balancing; energy flexibility
• Consumer Information – Communication is a vital aspect of promoting energy efficiency
• CHP and Heating / Cooling – Assessment for the potential application of high-efficiency CHP and DH
• Obligation Schemes, Audits and Monitoring – Options for implementation and issues related to monitoring
• National Energy Efficiency Action Plans