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New Energy Management System installed in Gdynia

On 15th November 2019 the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Act Now! project was started by publishing a request for quotation regarding an innovative building energy management solution, namely „Delivery, assembly, start-up and visualisation of the stationary central archiving and control system for selected electrical and heating-ventilation installations in the depot building of PKT Gdynia”.

According to the request for proposal, the task of implementing the Energy Management System (EMS) in Gdynia trolleybus depot building was divided into two stages:

• Stage 1 - Installation of 6 additional heat meters at the main heat node of the depot building. The additional meters allow to collect data, which will be used to prepare the final analysis how to introduce energy savings patterns.
• Stage 2 - completion of all works and start up of the entire central archiving and control system for selected electrical and heating-ventilation installations in the PKT depot building.

The six additional heat meters were installed until the end of 2019, that are now used to measure and archive data on building heat distribution. Two central heatings (radiators) were placed out in the administrative and workshop part of the building, while a third one is in the workshop hall with heaters. Apart from these, mechanical ventilation, curtain heaters and hot running water meters were installed.

After the implementation of the first stage of the investment, the collection and archiving of data is done automatically from the six new heat meters and the previously installed electricity submeters. It is now possible to instantly indicate whether a given part of the heating system is working properly or not. Acquiring data on a regular basis, PKT is able to quickly capture and check if there has been, for example, a leakage in the heating system or whether someone has manually changed the parameters in the ventilation unit in an unauthorized manner, e.g. raising the temperature by several degrees, and thus causing unnecessary energy losses. The detailed current archiving and separation into individual parts of the heating and ventilation installation helps to detect the irregularities causing energy losses. The system archives data every 5 minute, thus providing a thorough overview of the building’s energy consumption.

In the final stage of the investment, which was realized by the end of June 2020, the contractor installed a synchronized central control and archiving system for the data from the abovementioned heat node meters and electricity submeters. All data archiving is now done automatically and is visible in one computer stand as well as on a special interactive display placed in the heat node room. In addition, 13 heaters were replaced with new, more efficient and steerable devices, equipped with an automatic central control system in place of the existing manual stationary controllers. Data from the operation of new heaters (e.g. temperature in a given zone) are also connected to a central Energy Management System visible in one computer. The automatic control and steering system of these installations is handled from one computer aided control station in selected parts of heating and electrical installations in the depot building.

By the possibility of creating new paradigms of setting particular parameters controlled by the system Gdynia, EMS provides great opportunities for energy savings which are estimated at about 20%-30%.

To sum up, the greatest benefits of the implemented tailored EMS for the trolleybus depot building are as follows:

• For the first time all energy consumption is visible in one panel with the possibility of remote steering of particular parameters.
• On the basis of the analysis of the recorded parameters, the failure of devices installed in the heating system of the depot building can be prevented in advance (e.g. large fluctuations in the temperature of hot water recorded in the installation made the building manager check the operation of the circulation pump
• Extremely convienient and efficient option of setting parameters in regular cycles (daily, weekly, monthly) depending on the purposed use of individual rooms and individual parts of the building (eg. switching off heating in offices at particular times at the weekends when staff is absent). The same refers to setting the temperature of hot water
• It is possible to set particular parameters of the heating medium depending on the external and internal temperature and the way of using individual parts of the room, eg. the workshop hall
• The estimated energy saving is about 25%-30%.
• Thermomodernization is not enough, saving are much higher with EMS.
• The EMS was not very costly (50 000 EUR) due to the fact that the contractor used software by the company Schneider meaning free of charge with their PLC sensors, applied in the investment.
• PKT is about to gain knowledge about the directions of further development of EMS in the depot building (modernization of mechanical ventilation control, registration of temperatures in other parts of the building, introduction of devices preventing cooling down of the interior of the building, exchanging all lighting to LED one, etc.)
• Last, but not least, the system can serve as a replicable model for efficient energy management in other buildings.

The EMS was introduced with a presentation and a short film in detail in the webinar on „Innovations for energy-efficient depots” by Marta Woronowicz from trolleybus operator PKT (Gdynia, Poland).

Author of the article: Marta Woronowicz

Background photo: Marta Woronowicz (PKT)