(by Gianfranco Ossino) Technological evolution, which marked the changes that marked our society, had as its aim the improvement of our living conditions at the expense of a constant increase in energy needs. Changes that have sometimes affected our behavior in the use, often unconscious and not at all thrifty, of resources in general, all with obvious environmental consequences.
It is mandatory to strive to produce energy with sustainable solutions and to limit consumption with efficient and conscious or functional use.
Sustainability: renewables and efficiency
Sustainability plays a fundamental and strategic role, as evidenced by the 2019 activity report that the GSE (Energy Services Manager) presented live streaming in early May. The document contains data and analyzes on the activities carried out in support of sustainable development. Sustainability announced at the beginning of the presentation by the president of the GSE, which underlines the neuralgic role of energy in a complex system which includes not only economic but also environmental and social aspects, interpreted not as a limit but an opportunity for development according to the integrated approach of the 17 sustainable development goals of the 2030 agenda. Development required today more than ever in the name of sustainability.
The data in the report provide a clear key to understanding the renewable energy and efficiency sectors will give rise to new energy paradigms, which will mark the energy transition made possible by digital technology and effective and efficient regulatory evolution.
The topic is very broad and concerns mobility, industry, services, residential…. or anything that uses electrical and / or thermal energy. Let's focus on our real estate park, which has a strongly energy-intensive vocation as a large percentage of it was made in the period of the economic boom, the 50s and 60s, when the cost of oil was so low that it did not favor the construction of low-consumption properties energy. Situation has not improved in the following years, which have seen continued preference for energy-efficient solutions to offer us the desired comfort at the expense of the environment and our health. Although the problem has been considerably delayed globally, a series of initiatives and measures have been launched with the aim of raising awareness of the phenomenon and working to remedy it.
"The only sustainable watt is the negawatt", was the slogan a few years ago that provocatively communicated the utopia of eliminating consumption obviously not possible, but it is possible to adopt solutions that direct an efficient and conscious use of the energy that can be produced from renewable sources. Precisely on this objective, in the real estate sector, the legislation provides that from 2021 all new buildings or buildings subject to major first-level renovation must have almost zero energy requirements (nZEB - Nearly Zero Energy Building). The nZEB buildings were introduced by the European Directive 31/2010 / EC, followed in Italy by Legislative Decree 192/2005 and subsequent updates.
In this regard, ENEA has set up a special Observatory (nZEB) with the aim of monitoring high energy performance buildings compliant with current European and national legislation. The European obligation foresees 2021 as the starting date but in our country it is already mandatory for public buildings and in some regions that wanted to bring forward the European date. The monitoring activity conducted by ENEA is contained in the latest report of the Observatory and relates to the three-year period 2016-2018.
The construction of an nZEB building is the combination of suitable technologies that take into account the context: climate, type of use, costs, behavior. The sustainability of the solution is achieved by resorting to energy production from renewable sources and efficient use of energy. Italy defines an nZEB as a very high energy performance building in which the energy requirement (very low or almost zero) is covered to a significant extent by on-site production of energy from renewable sources.
The production of electricity and thermal energy from renewables is made possible today by various solutions available on the market: photovoltaic, micro-wind, biomass, solar thermal, efficient plants (HVAC) including district heating and district cooling.
All solutions that favor distributed generation or produce energy where it is needed, drastically reducing losses, costs and environmental impact, favoring the creation of energy communities. Realities that with a suitable regulatory evolution could be achieved by becoming a model to follow where possible and feasible. In this regard, the news of a project for the state of New York where a wind farm with a power of 340MW will be sufficient to meet the electricity needs of about 134.000 homes will be made in recent days.
Many other solutions being tested will make decarbonisation more and more achievable for the production of energy from renewables, some of them:
- renewable energy sources available locally, integrated with storage solutions based on chemical (H2) and electrochemical (batteries) systems to store the energy produced. Solution tested by the EU-funded REMOTE project with the installation of hybrid energy storage systems in Italy, Greece and Norway. The project, coordinated by the Energy Department of the Polytechnic of Turin and conducted with several European partners, is among the finalists of the EUSustable Energy Week (EUSEW)
- floating platforms that convert the energy of waves, sun and wind into electricity. They represent a potential solution for coastal communities and could contribute to the construction of offshore wind farms.
In all of this, digital technology is an enabling factor for the use of renewables, for example in the electricity sector, whose change in progress directs the self-consumption of the energy produced, the storage of excess energy and the neighboring sale if necessary . In this scenario, the energy "Peer to Peer" with the blockchain, in particular with smart contracts, could implement an energy transaction between "peers", an exchange or a sale of the energy surplus to other subjects with the same characteristics. The use of the blockchain, in the energy sector, sees several projects (over 100, see Aidr e-book "Blockchain for all") that use the Blockchain, specifically an energy "Peer to Peer" project is that of Siemens and the New York startup LO3 Energy, which sees the establishment of a series of microgrids, each microgrid refers to a set of electrical users managed through a single connection point with the public distribution network. The blockchain project provides a microgrid control solution integrated with a peer to peer trading platform. In this way, the operators of the photovoltaic systems, located on the roofs of the houses, will be allowed to send excess energy to the microgrids. In return, the owners of the photovoltaic systems will receive an economic compensation managed with a digital payment method that uses the blockchain.
Another requirement for sustainability is energy efficiency, which indicates the ability of a physical system to obtain a given result using less energy than other systems known as lower efficiency, generally increasing their efficiency and thus allowing energy savings and a reduction of operating costs. Energy efficiency therefore indicates the ability to be able to “do more with less”, adopting the best technologies / techniques available on the market and a more aware and responsible behavior towards energy uses. This therefore implies a more rational use of energy, eliminating waste due to the non-optimal operation and management of simple systems (motors, boilers, appliances) and complex systems (buildings where we live or work, industries, means of transport) both at local, both of an entire country (Wikipedia).
The solutions to achieve energy efficiency are different: Insulation, Selective glass, Daylighting, Solar control glass, Automation and control, Lighting,…
Thermal insulation is certainly the basic solution because the thermal needs of buildings are reduced by improving their thermal inertia, it would allow a considerable reduction of energy both for heating in cold periods and for cooling in hot periods.
Digital technology contributes to energy efficiency in every phase of the supply chain and its potential could find use in different applications. The containment of losses and the continuity of service throughout the energy chain can also be achieved with effective and efficient predictive maintenance by monitoring the infrastructures, a requirement that is deeply felt in general and even more in critical situations such as energy. The use of 5G technology will ensure that the need finds a valid answer by using IOT detection sensors located in a capillary way in the infrastructures to constantly monitor them. This would make it possible to detect their status in particular if prompted by unforeseen critical events, which could cause their failures or otherwise modify their response with possible repercussions on losses and continuity of service. The use of the blockchain in this context, thanks to its ease of data exchange which speeds up its operation, would also give added value the guarantee both on the unambiguous and secure identification of each device and on the process of managing the data collected. Another use is the internal introduction to the properties of IOT detection sensors connected to the blockchain. It would allow the certification of the actual energy efficiency of the buildings and in the presence of prosumers, thanks to the historicization of consumption and production, the actual energy yield and therefore intervene, where possible, to reduce the current energy-intensive vocation of the buildings.
Conscious consumption
In the energy transition, the user will increasingly play a proactive role by giving himself the "smart" name and will be decisive for new business scenarios, where competitiveness on the market will be characterized by new services that will accompany the energy commodity. Sustainability also requires conscious energy consumption, i.e. that the use of energy takes place correctly and functionally in order to eliminate waste and reduce environmental impacts. The diffusion of a more environmentally friendly culture is based on the awareness of using resources in a functional way by eliminating waste, virtuous behavior that can be pursued with new behavioral models addressed by strategic environmental policies undertaken at European level and implemented at national level such as EU Directives 2018/844 on energy performance in construction.
At national level, the diffusion of this culture is also carried out by Enea with the NGO Green Cross Italia, through a series of educational initiatives and the publication of the Decalogue on intelligent consumption. The decalogue contains a series of tips, which in addition to pursuing the noble environmental objective, if applied, would also translate into economic savings for our energy costs.
In order to make functional use of energy, the user must have available a series of information regarding his consumption, his comfort, a series of parameters that can be detected from his own environment…. Information and their subsequent processing, permitted by digital technology, in contexts of "Smart Building" and featuring the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI - tool introduced pursuant to EU Directive 2018/844), which in a nutshell would provide information to evaluate and intervene to improve the energy efficiency of the property. The indicator is the result of preventive operations on the use of energy based on the initial detection and subsequent comparison of the data relating to the ability to adapt the energy consumption and the real needs of the user.
Conclusions
Digitalization is among the protagonists of the energy transition and constitutes an enabling factor, according to a design approach that sees the combination of technology with data along their entire supply chain (detection, historicization, analysis).
Another enabling factor is a consonant and rapid regulatory evolution which, in addition to directing the adoption of sustainable solutions, emphasizes and promotes the decisive role of digitalization for sustainability and conscious consumption. The measures put in place to encourage a sustainable energy transition in terms of consensus and diffusion, particularly in this period of crisis, must provide tangible economic tools (tax advantages, bonuses, concessions, ...) in the immediate future, making their investment convenient.
Meanwhile, each of us must contribute through a conscious and responsible use of resources, not giving up our comfortable lifestyle provided that it is free from waste.
I conclude with a maxim because you make us more sensitive on the subject: “God always forgives. Men sometimes forgive. Nature never forgives ”.
Gianfranco Ossino - Engineer and Head of Aidr Observatory for the Digitization of the Environment and Energy