Public sector properties hold great potential for reducing the carbon footprint
Are Oy Press release 2 December 2015 at 1.00 p.m.
A quarter of all energy consumed in Finland is consumed by buildings. The construction industry has launched initiatives to improve energy efficiency. There have been huge improvements in construction elements, insulation materials and windows. Building services systems have improved as well, but there are many factors slowing down the adoption of such improvements—not least people’s prejudices.
There are vast differences between the energy efficiencies of building services systems. In the planning phase, energy calculations help the developer to find the most energy-efficient building services system. In this way, the developer is able to choose the system that best supports its environmental policy.
Are Oy, a Finnish family-owned company, has created a patented building services system called Are Sensus® under the Tekes Sensus technology programme. In addition to Are, several research and educational institutes participated in the development work:
- Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo
- Lappeenranta University of Technology
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
- Finnish Institute of Occupational Health
- VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Developers have compared Are Sensus to a conventional building services system with the following results:
- Office building 1: Sensus consumed 31% less heating energy and 29% less cooling energy than the conventional system.
- Office building 2: Sensus consumed 22% less heating energy and 36% less cooling energy than the conventional system.
- Office building 3: Sensus consumed 30% less heating energy and 44% less cooling energy than the conventional system.
- Office building 4: Sensus consumed 27% less heating energy and 27% less cooling energy than the conventional system.
There are about thirty completed Are Sensus installations. Sensus is suitable for both new buildings and renovation projects. The system is capable of utilising alternative energy sources, such as geothermal and solar energy. The system can be connected to a district cooling system.
Are Sensus has been used in two projects which received the highest LEED Platinum environmental certificate, and in numerous LEED Gold certified projects.
According to our estimate, the Sensus system would enable the public sector to achieve savings of about EUR 40 million per year, reducing CO2 emissions at the same time by 150,000 tonnes annually. It is important to prepare energy efficiency calculations to enable transparent comparison and verification of the energy savings potential. The public sector should request that energy efficiency comparisons of building services systems be included in the public procurement process.
Further information available from:
Vesa Hakkarainen, Business Area Director, vesa.hakkarainen@are.fi, tel. +358 (0)40 300 5181
Kauko Pellikka, Project Development Director, kauko.pellikka@are.fi, tel. +358 (0)40 300 5172
