The Energy-Check Stiftung Energieeffizienz gGmbH has developed a standardized procedure with which the quality assurance of heating systems for housing companies can be handled and offers this procedure commercially as so-called basic monitoring. In a beta test, the engineers checked and optimized their process in practice. 100 plants from 10 operators were in the test. The savings achieved ranged from 900 euros per year per 100 m2 of collector area for solar thermal systems to almost 3,000 euros per year for heat pumps per 1,000 m2 of living space. “Monovalent heat pumps show the absolute greatest savings potential,” reports David Schreckenberg of Energy-Check.

In the meantime, 150 plants are being monitored. While in the beginning it was mainly plants developed by the engineering firm Ortjohann, from which Energy-Check was spun off at the end of 2011, third-party plants are now also increasingly being monitored. But the market is difficult to plow, observes David Schreckenberg of Energy-Check. Quality assurance of heating systems has not yet really arrived as a topic at housing companies. “Our method is particularly suitable for managers of larger asset pools of at least five, preferably ten or more assets,” says Schreckenberg. They have the advantage of being able to compare efficiency, final energy and emissions data from different plants. For this purpose, the company has created a standard catalog containing approximately 50 common installations and meter configurations. This allows the system configurations that are essential in the housing industry to be mapped. This reduces the effort required for monitoring. It is around 500 euros one-time and 250 euros annual fee. In addition, there may be costs for the installation of heat meters or data transmission. Monitoring is already economical in a two-family house with a heat pump, Schreckenberg says.

Uwe Neuhaus, technical director of Erbbauverein Köln, is convinced of the concept and has had all the company’s systems tested for effectiveness and efficiency for more than ten years. The idea is to “notice failures before the tenant notices them.” Solar thermal is monitored. The costs for monitoring the solar thermal systems are around 5,000 euros per year. This pays off, Neuhaus says, because it is possible to detect immediately when components fail and solar yields fail.Especially systems of the first hours, which had to be assembled from components of different manufacturers, have proven to be prone to failure. The non-profit housing cooperative Wohnungs-Genossenschaft 1897 Köln rrh.eG relies on the monitoring of heat pumps. Its technical director, Reinhold Schmies, has concluded guarantee contracts for his systems that ensure a minimum annual performance factor (COP) for the systems. The basis is a model contract for heat pumps and solar thermal energy drafted by the Energy Efficiency Foundation. Housing companies can use this as a template.

Contractual partners are the companies that install the equipment. Manufacturers advise against such warranty contracts. Their argument: user behavior significantly influences the annual figure, a guarantee is not possible. In practice, however, this seems feasible, at least for housing companies, if the consumption of many tenants is averaged. For the system from 2010, an AER of 3.3 was promised for the heat pump, but significantly higher values were achieved. So far, monitoring exists when plants are newly commissioned. “The plan is also to successively introduce quality assurance for existing plants after an upcoming modernization,” says Schmies. Uwe Neuhaus, head of technology, would like to see this monitoring become mandatory when granting low-interest loans. “There is only a craftsman’s declaration, but it would be good if there were a real energetic control,” he stresses. This would give housing providers more assurance that they are getting not only a functional facility for their money, but one that works well.

The Alfa research project has already shown that there is potential and demand here. Housing industry companies, equipment manufacturers and service providers worked together there. They took a close look at individual systems in larger residential complexes and identified potential savings of between 5 and 20 percent. Their finding: even modernized and new plants are not necessarily free of faults; even plants that are considered to be economical still offer potential for optimization. The Optimus follow-up project has also shown enormous deficits, especially in new installations.

Author: Pia Grund-Ludwig

Energy Efficiency Foundation

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