DEXMA Detect: Detail of retrofits for buildings in Italy

DEXMA generic

21 February 2023 11:46

As described in this article, Detect is able to simulate a series of virtual audit recommendations to help energy consumers save on their energy bills and reduce their energy costs. These recommendations have been selected for each country and adjusted according to the market, legislation and feasibility of each territory. We describe below the recommendations that Detect simulates in Italy:

Recommendations in Italy	What does it involve?	How is this calculated?	Recommendation and/or country-specific casuistry
Standby consumption	DEXMA Detect estimates which part of the total consumption has been residual due to the background operation of electrical equipment and recommends the installation of equipment to control this avoidable consumption and thus save energy.	From the energy consumption data and energy prices, Detect locates the inefficiencies/overconsumption that have occurred during periods of inactivity of the building. From these detected consumptions, the savings are calculated and the number of necessary equipment is calculated depending on the standby power to be avoided. The acquisition cost is calculated on the basis of the number of devices at an estimated price of €18 per device. No operational costs are assumed for this recommendation	- If no prices are configured, savings will be calculated using default prices. - The nominal power of the equipment is estimated at 3.68 kW with a maximum use of 60% of this power. - The lifetime of the equipment is estimated at 3 years. - The net present value must be greater than 0 for the recommendation to be positive.
DEXMA Optimise	DEXMA Detect connects with DEXMA Optimise to use its AI models trained with historical data, on a daily basis for each datapoint of your buildings, to check for anomalies in actual vs. expected consumption.	Based on at least 6 months of hourly consumption data, energy prices and the location of the building in order to obtain weather and holiday data, this information is used to train the model that will estimate the reference consumption. Based on this value, the model estimation is compared daily with the real consumption and anomalous behaviour is detected, with its impact on energy and economic levels. The energy and economic savings are therefore estimated on the basis of the reduction of these anomalous consumptions, the acquisition cost is equated to the human cost of resolving anomalies and no operating costs are assumed for this recommendation.	- On the 1st of each month the models are re-trained to estimate expected consumption. - We assume that 50% of incidents are resolved.
Improve energy efficiency behaviour	The behaviour of the users/occupants of a building is one of the key factors influencing the energy performance of a building. Misuse of a building can be related to lack of awareness but also to lack of knowledge. DEXMA Detect calculates how behavioural change is a low cost and high impact way to reduce energy costs, and educational campaigns are one way to address this issue.	From the literature, maximum and minimum energy savings are assigned depending on the energy efficiency score provided by Detect, thus the savings are directly related to the actual efficiency. The higher the score, the lower the percentage of savings assigned and vice versa. The energy prices configured by the user or defined by default, will be used for the calculation of economic savings. Acquisition costs are calculated assuming an investment of 1-2% of current energy costs and a maximum saving of 10%. An operational cost of 200€ is assumed for this recommendation.	- This recommendation is particularly suitable for the following activities: Library, health centre, education, office building, sports activities, leisure activities, sports gym, hypermarkets, department store, hospital, hotel, museum, office, branch office, small grocery shop, small multi-purpose shop, sports swimming pool,cafeteria, university, housing, other. - The net present value must be greater than 0 for the recommendation to be positive.
Improved insulation	DEXMA Detect simulates the impacts of implementing insulation improvements in the building envelope, e.g. external walls, roof, floors... and how to decrease the thermal transmittance. Clearly it is calculated that its implementation is not counterproductive, since increasing the insulation lowers the heating load but increases the need for cooling in summer. This recommendation is particularly suitable for buildings located in areas with low temperatures.	DEXMA Detect uses disaggregation to estimate cooling and heating consumption based on consumption data, surface area and climatic conditions (degree days) and uses building energy modelling (BEM) to calculate the estimated energy savings. At the economic level, savings are calculated based on configured or default energy prices. The costs for implementing insulation improvements vary depending on the building activity and size. No operational costs are assumed for this recommendation.	- This recommendation is particularly suitable for the following activities: Library, health centre, education,, office building, sports facilities, leisure facilities, gymnasium, food shop, other shop, hospital, hotel, museum, individual office, branch office, other, small food shop, small other shop, sports swimming pool, catering, university, housing. - This recommendation does not apply to buildings with gas heating. - The net present value must be greater than 0 for the recommendation to be positive. - An insulation lifetime of 40 years is assumed.

On the other hand, in addition to the virtual audit recommendations (accompanied by complementary information), the behavioural analysis recommendations for Italy are:

Recommendations in Italy	What does it involve?	How is this calculated?	Casuística específica de la recomendación y/o del país
Energy usage (behaviour)	DEXMA Detect analyses the last full month of hourly data and evaluates whether the consumption in an expensive period has been higher than expected or not.	For those buildings that meet the casuistry of having more than one period with different prices, Detect analyses whether the consumption thresholds per expensive period are exceeded depending on whether there are two or three periods.	This recommendation does not apply to buildings with a single-period or multi-period tariff at the same price.
Monthly energy behaviour metrics	DEXMA Detect analyses the last complete month of hourly data and evaluates different relevant parameters of the building performance.	The parameters calculated within this section are: - Consumption last month - Variation in % of the last month vs. the previous month - Variation of the average outdoor temperature of the last month vs. the previous month - Day of the week with the highest consumption in the last month - Time of day with the highest consumption in the last month - Distribution of electricity consumption by day of the last month	There are no special cases for this recommendation

Finally, in terms of energy advices, these are the proposals that Detect recommends:

Recommendations in Italy	What does it involve?
DEXMA Analyse	It is recommended that when implementing any of the energy efficiency measures, you can use DEXMA Analyse to monitor your energy consumption as well as the savings achieved by following the IPMVP protocol.
Electric mobility	The user is informed of the estimated savings when replacing a combustion vehicle with an electric vehicle (if he/she has a fleet of vehicles in his/her building)
Public grants	The user is reminded that energy efficiency actions are strongly supported by public administration
Temperature reduction	The user is reminded that setting a good heating temperature, simply by reducing it by 1°, can lead to significant savings on the heating bill.
Onsite audit	The user is advised to complement the results obtained by DEXMA Detect with an on-site audit.
Indoor Air Quality	The user is recommended to monitor indoor air quality with DEXMA Analyse to provide good comfort for building users and reduce energy consumption.

Articles in this section