The seventh event organized by energynomics.ro in the series “Energy Efficiency for Big Results” has occasioned in Oradea the most comprehensive review of dominant themes over the year, with eight speakers and over 50 participants. Through the variety and quality of interventions, the conference “New Energy Efficiency Tools (cogeneration, storage, monitoring, automation)” proved to be an excellent finale for the second year of the Energy Efficiency campaign organized by energynomics.ro with the support of ANRE and a considerable number of partners. At Oradea, they were ABB România, Control Point powered by Valmet, Eaton, MET România Energy, Phoenix Contact, Photon Energy, Stratum Enclosures.

Irina Nicolau, expert in ANRE’s energy efficiency department, provided us a presentation which, besides the legislative provisions on the field, included a series of information addressed directly to the energy auditors. “The annual report on the energy auditing activity submitted to ANRE by January 30 must include all the energy audits carried out in the reported year,” mentioned Irina Nicolau, referring to the fact that there were cases in which the energy auditor has submitted, upon prolongation of the validity of the authorization, assessment forms for audits that were not included in the annual report. Also, the ANRE official insisted that the list of equipment necessary for carrying out the measurements in the energy audit should be accompanied by the rental or other forms of contracts that are valid; also, if the equipment is in the property of the auditor it is necessary that copies of the invoices or other documents which attests ownership to be attached.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF IRINA NICOLAU

By the end of 2018, the European Commission will assess the SME definition at European level, after which new legislative proposals could be adopted, Irina Nicolau also informed us. She mentioned the Implementation Guide of Art. 8 EED – published on the EC website, too.

Oradea announces investments in e-cars infrastructure

In 2019, Oradea Municipality expects that the town develops the charging stations infrastructure for electric vehicles in an accelerated manner. Oradea town decided to develop its own network of 16 charging stations for electric vehicles by using the available funding from AFM program. “We also decided that all trade companies subordinated by the local council should install, by 1 January 2020, at least one charging station”, mentioned the deputy mayor, Mircea Mălan. Moreover, by 1 January 2020, accommodation units of more than 20 rooms will have to install one charging station. Building offices of more than 2,000 sq m and business premises that have several parking places have the same obligation: from 100 to 500 parking places – 1 station, more than 500 parking places – one more station.

Phoenix Contact Solutions for e-mobility

In his speech, Catalin Lepinzean, Business Development Manager at Phoenix Contact, continued the dialogue on electric mobility, exposing, first of all the Phoenix Contact E-Mobility offer: components and solutions for AC and DC charging, customized charging infrastructure concepts, and innovations allowing for high power charging. ”What Phoenix Contact proposes is this mix – starting from components, through integration of the solutions and implementing some ideas through appropriate technical solutions”, explained Cătălin Lepinzean.

“While we do not produce turn-key stations, we support system integrators in Romania to build such stations”, explained Cătălin Lepinzean.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF CĂTĂLIN LEPINZEAN

In a commentary addressed to Deputy Mayor Mircea Mălan, Cătălin Lepinzean suggested that the charging stations to be installed by the municipality should be integrated into an interconnected network, collecting data on the use of individual units as well as parameters consumption, etc. The suggestion was well received: “Our idea is that the public transport company will manage the network of municipal e-charging stations as well as the stations that will be built by the companies in the subordination of the City Hall,” said Deputy Mayor Mircea Mălan, who resumed the appeal to companies in the industry to present themselves for concrete discussions with the local authority.

MET România Energy – ecosystem for each infrastructure

MET Romania Energy is one of such companies, as “its portfolio comprises many solutions and we are doing more than just selling chargers for e-vehicles,” said Andrei Bucur, Business Development Manager at MET Romania Energy. “We believe, the complete package must include elements such as authentication and payment solution, a way for checking whether the charger is available or not, and some way to allow the charger to be used at any time of the day”, insisted Andrei Bucur presenting an integrated solution, “a mobile application that integrates payment by card in a Uber-type system”.

In addition, Andrei Bucur 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.

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.

New opportunities for added-value in the industrial segment

Opening his speech, Marius Manole, Service Engineer at ABB Romania, introduced YuMi, a collaborative, state-of-the-art robot that allows for safe human-machine team work.

The representative of ABB referred to three dominant trends in industrial production where automation is the most appropriate response: demographic changes and urban trends, new safety requirements, and generally changes in user behavior, and the imperative of sustainable production, with increasingly strict requirements for production in the food & beverages sector.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF MARIUS MANOLE

“Explosive improvements in computing power, storage capacity and connectivity are now expanding into industrial markets and lead to new opportunities for added-value within companies”, ABB representative pointed out.

ABB is a key player on the most dynamic segments relevant to the energy sector. Among these, the ABB representative referred to the Internet of Things (electrical networks, industrial automation, etc.), mobile internet and cloud technologies (using cloud software and providing electrical equipment for data-centers), electrification of transport, advanced exploration O&G exploration and recovery, inverters and SCADA systems for renewable energy.

Competitiveness with maximum efficient UPS

With a history of more than 185 years, the companies that make up the Eaton Group provide more energy-efficient, cost-effective and secure energy management technologies”, said Cătălin Crivineanu, Partner Account Manager, Power Quality Department at Eaton Electric. Crivineanu insisted on Eaton’s 99% uninterruptible power supply systems. “Eaton’s backup power supply ensures that critical systems are available and protected non-stop, also enabling advanced power conditioning and quality management,” the ABB representative said. He also mentioned one of the projects completed in 2018: “We have delivered 16 UPSs to equip a large-size polar vessel that will operate under the most difficult conditions at the North Pole”.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF CĂTĂLIN CRIVINEANU

As an concrete example, Crivineanu spoke about the energy efficiency achieved with Eaton’s UPSs (VMMS Efficiency and ESS Efficiency). He explained how the one-percent difference in the efficiency of a UPS translates into money: “A fully efficient UPS would feed a production line that consumes 1,000 kWh without any loss. At 99% efficiency, the consumption rises to 1,010 kWh, because the UPS is also a consumer, in order to charge batteries, energize the power modules, signal lights, etc. In one year the loss is about 7,000 euros”, Crivineanu said. “There are UPSs in the market that have even 80% efficiency, which means a loss of 120,000 euros per year in extra energy paid.”

The representative of Eaton also referred to the prospect of UPSs providing the frequency reserve with a considerable impact on the competitiveness of the systems in which they are installed. “Reserves are needed to supplement mandatory frequency regulation to correct deviations in grid frequency and supply-demand balance caused by forecast inaccuracy and faults”, said Cătălin Crivineanu.

Optimizing costs for wastewater plants

Daniel Bertalan, Sales & Project Manager la Control Point, presented some of Valmet solutions for solids measuring in municipal and industrial wastewater plants. Based on over 40 years’ experience in the field, the Finish group Valmet can provide with equipment modified and optimized for answering the feedback from customers”, said Daniel Bertalan.

Valmet’s advanced measurement technology and controls equipment optimizes costs in sludge dewatering systems across the entire process chain. “Depending on the characteristics of the system, investment can be paid back even in couple of months,” said Daniel Bertalan, who then listed the benefits for municipal and industrial wastewater plants: fewer laboratory analyses, improved process stability, savings in time and chemicals used, lower need for instrument maintenance and reduced maintenance costs, more efficient energy consumption, and in the end improved capacity for the plant.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF DANIEL BERTALAN

Valmet is active in Romania through Control Point (Brașov), whose Sales manager, Daniel Bertalan, has referred to some of their areas of interest in the present. “The equipment installed by the Valmet group two or three decades ago is still in operation in Romania, and we provide maintenance or audit services for some of them”, said Daniel Bertalan. “At European level, for many years, we have been partners with Valmet in numerous projects, mainly in the biogas sector. We expect this kind of projects – waste to power, biomass, biogas – to start appearing in Romania once the legislative framework is clarified”, said the representative of Control Point.

Photon Energy increases life span of PV systems

Photon Energy provides through its local subsidiary Photon Energy Operations Romania operations and maintenance services for 15 MW installations in the Oradea-Maramures region alone,” said Lauru Bădiţă, Country Manager of Photon Energy Operations Romania, in the opening of his speech.

At turn, Jan Cerny, Sales Representative with Photon Energy talked at length about the Control Room from Photon Energy, with state-of-the-art plant monitoring operating 365 days per year increases plant uptime through fast corrective maintenance. Data is acquired from inverters, zone monitoring and string monitoring, based on sensors, through PLC to reach the software platform for aggregation and generation of visual and sheet reports. “We are also able to do retrofit. If you have normal inverters we can upgrade them for the string monitoring, with wired or wireless version, which means there is no digging needed”, said Jan Cerny.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF PHOTON ENERGY

He also presented the operator’s workflow in the Photon Energy Monitoring platform – PECOM. “We are looking at the monitoring system and we detect a fault – first thing is to create a ticket, to contact the owner, the local distribution, and the internet provider in order to get as much information available. Then, our technicians are contacted by ticketing and by phone call as well, and they go to the field plant to get fixed what is needed. They will double check with the operator by phone, are when everything is solved, we are closing the ticket and we contact the owner for announcing the job is done.”

In respect to the dynamics of the local photovoltaic market in recent months, Laura Bădiţă said that changes to the Renewable Energy Law have given new breath of life to producers by allowing bilateral contracts for capacities below 3MW. “We are preparing for the introduction of the pro-rata system, starting January 1, 2019, and we welcome the involvement of the AFM in support of generation projects up to 3kW (ongrid) and up to 1kW (offgrid),” added Bădiţă. “Existing producers need to know that a relatively little investment in a well-conducted maintenance program can increase the life of the plants for another 15-20 years,” said the representative of Photon Energy.

The event was organized by energynomics.ro, with the support of our partners: ABB România, Control Point powered by Valmet, Eaton, MET România Energy, Phoenix Contact, Photon Energy, Stratum Enclosures.

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 February and November 2018 we scheduled seven 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 in the Communication Campaign “Energy Efficiency for big results”

• March 14, Iaşi – Efficiency through Automation and Energy Storage Follow-Up article
• April 26, Cluj-Napoca – Optimized energy consumption (storage, monitoring, industrial design) Follow-Up article
• May 22, Timișoara – Industrial automation and energy storage for energy efficiency Follow-Up article
• July 4, Constanța – Innovation and proven solutions for energy efficiency Follow-Up article
• September 18, Bucharest – Energy Efficiency – Best Practices and Future Scenarios  Follow-Up article
• October 17, Craiova – Energy Efficiency for Flexibility and Financial Sustainability 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