1) Buildings are not isolated entities and urban planning decisions around street orientation, services availability, and maximizing shading can significantly impact district-level energy optimization. 2) Modern "smart" cities present opportunities to closely monitor systems like district cooling plants in real-time and optimize operations to improve efficiency by 30-50%. 3) Building automation systems are most effective when their performance requirements are established early in the design process and operators are trained to fully utilize their capabilities once buildings are occupied.

1. KEO
Ioannis Spanos
How important is building-to-district level low energy urban planning in order to
support and achieve the Green Economy for Sustainable Development initiative?
Buildings are not stand along entities in the canvas of the cities and urban planning. Correct
design decisions on urban planning orientations, street directions and services availability
can play key roles in optimizing the energy at district scale. It is understood that in many
cases aesthetics and market driven reasons can dictate how are cities are being build.
But, if the correct decisions are taken at the early decisions, then the cities can be more
sustainable, more energy efficient. Some simple questions at the design can be: Why our
buildings have large windows on the east and west side when the sun is at low angles and
the solar gains have the maximum penetration? How the urban planning can be developed
to maximize shading on the pedestrians’ areas? Can the future cities have solar power parks
within them and produce electricity where is needed? How far a district cooling plant should
be to maximize its efficiency?
Regarding the actual operation of these cities, nowadays data can be widely available and
in many cases the data are large in quantities; i.e. mega-data. The future of existing cities
is in how to be able to monitor everything, get useful statistics and be able to optimize
operations. This may have a big impact on how the efficient the cities operate, not just for
energy efficiency. Assuming that a district cooling plant is in operation and it is always on,
then its efficiency can be very low and may not be cost effective as an investment. However,
if the operator knows where the peak cooling demand is in the city and direct the cooling at
the point, when reduced the pumps’ loads for other areas, the efficiency of the system can
be 30%-50% higher and the overall investment to be financial attractive. Imagine similar
optimizations and efficiency decisions on traffic, waste collection etc.
As per your interaction with the developers and construction companies, how
has implementation and of Building Automation Systems helped achieve the
desired results of building efficiency?
Everything starts at the brief of a project. Successful projects have a vision of what the final
product will be. We want to work with the clients and understand what are the expected
performance requirements; e.g. what are the needs of operating and monitoring the indoor
environment, the level of facilities management involvement, future potentials and needs,
targets that they want to achieve and how these can be certified. The design, therefore,
can be developed by focusing on the identified priorities and improving a design which
focus on the specific client performance requirements. In order these building performance
requirements to be achieved during actual buildings operations, the transition from design
to construction and, hence, final product has to be managed accordingly. For this reason,
the Sustainability Services Unit and Independent Commissioning Authority Services in KEO
are part of the Project Management Division, as the integration, applicability and operation
of smart systems has to be considered holistically.
What are challenges in creating the awareness of energy
efficiency in the market related to new and existing buildings in
the UAE especially low environmental impact developments?
Due to the low oil prices and the increased demand of power in GCC,
energy efficiency is an important facet of a sustainable future. Many
developments have achieved, with the help of best practice automation
systems and sensors, excellent energy efficiency design credentials and
some of these buildings are already operational.
For newly constructed buildings, the operators and owners have to
be able to assess their buildings under actual operations. Complex
monitoring systems without simple to understand outputs make the
situation in some cases difficult.
It has been found that some buildings with excellent energy efficient
credentials are not performing as they should do and in most of the cases
it seems that the buildings have complex automation systems, which
have not been used in full capacity by the operators and the facilities
managers. If the MEP operation of these buildings is being optimized,
then significant energy efficiency reduction is achieved matching in most
cases the design energy consumption expectations.
The next step is benchmarking. In order to really understand the real
benefits of Sustainable Buildings and how these designs are delivering
better building performance and value for money; some regional
benchmarks, GCC specific, have to be developed.

2. How important is Design and optimization of building services, district
cooling / heating systems, heating ventilation and air-conditioning
(HVAC) systems?
Buildings, apart from being energy efficient, have to provide the ideal indoor
conditions for people to work, operate and live. Optimization of the HVAC and
building services doesn’t mean to maximize the energy efficiency and not providing
a good indoor environment. Automation systems shall be flexible enough to reduce
the energy consumption, but at the same time shall be able to flag alarms when a
critical indoor environment parameter is out of limits.
A good example is the provision of fresh air and the significant costs for cooling
and treating it before it is used within the buildings. During extreme summer
conditions, the operator may choose to reduce the flow of the air handling units,
having in mind that usually the AHU are most of the times slightly oversized.
However, if within the building the occupancy is more than expected, then the CO2
will be increased with potential health considerations for the occupants. A smart
HVAC system is the system who allows energy optimization of the AHU units and
also provide fresh air to not increase the CO2 emissions above critical levels.
Regarding district cooling systems, modulation and interactive optimization of the
operations can make an investment into a district cooling development friendly,
or not. The benefits of ‘variable speeds drive’ on pumps and cooling tower fans,
the instantaneous understanding of the temperatures within the chilled water
network and the accessibility of the monitoring and direct optimization are really
big to neglect. Of course, all automation systems have to be considered at the early
design stage and be analyzed correctly in order to be appropriately included. Some
may say that the cost of smart automation systems is expensive, but when the
actual long term benefits are analyzed, their investment is fully justifiable.
What role of retrofitting you see for buildings to comply with the Green
Building Standards being implemented?
Before we start thinking about retrofitting, we have to understand what it has to
be upgraded and be retrofitted. The best approach is the one that is followed as
part of the investment grade audits on energy. If a system is old, it doesn’t mean
automatically that it is not efficient or it doesn’t still being fit for purpose. Existing
systems have to be analyzed and an assessment has to be made on the benefits of
retrofitting. For example, if automation is added, or the whole system is completely
replaced, the owner of the building has to fully understand what the real benefits
are. Ideally, the systems to be upgraded should have some metering and reading
capabilities to help understand its current full operational capabilities. If not, it is
more difficult to assess the potential of an investment in retrofitting. This is a good
lesson learned for all new buildings as, at some point in the future, these will have
to be retrofitted and upgraded one way or another; metering and monitoring is a
must to have. Retrofitting, re-optimizing and re-commissioning of buildings can
have significant energy reduction benefits; which in some cases have achieved an
energy reduction of up to 20%. Buildings designed twenty years ago, have probably
being designed under old requirements and different building operation regimes;
retrofitting is a good management vehicle to re-optimize, modernize and make the
buildings smarter while achieving high energy savings and improving the well-
being of the occupants.
What are your expectations from the summit and how do you rate the
topics of the discussion at the summit?
The summit will have representatives from various parts of the industry. Apart
from understanding what are the latest developments from different suppliers and
manufacturers, it will be a good forum to understand synergies between different
products and their optimum inclusion into buildings.
Ioannis Spanos | KEO