Pilot Experience in Social Housing: Intelligent Monitoring of Energy Consumption

By project EMPOWER

Published on 11 July 2019

Portugal

Área Metropolitana de Lisboa

About this good practice

The HERB Project, Holistic Energy-efficient Retrofitting of residential Buildings, was implemented in Almada between 2012 and 2016. It focused on the development and demonstration of energy efficient new and innovative technologies and solutions for retrofitting and performance monitoring of residential buildings in EU countries.
In Almada, the demonstration building is located at the parish of Caparica. It is a multiapartment building used for social housing purposes and started off with very low energy standards. The energy refurbishment of this building included roof and externaI wall insulation; solar thermal and PV hybrid collectors with surface nanocoating; high efficiency double glazing windows; LED lighting; natural ventilation and the installation of a remote monitoring system with sensors for electricity, gas and water consumption, alongside with humidity and temperature sensors.

Resources needed

The practice was set up in the framework of the “Seventh Framework Programme” (FP7, 2007-2013). It has been co-funded by FP7 (50%) and City Council own resources (50%) - Almada’s Climate Fund. The total amount involved in order to run the practice was € 132.000,00.

Evidence of success

From an asset rating point of view, the introduced measures resulted in 93,6% energy savings and 92,7% CO2 savings (this includes electricity produced on site). Most importantly, for a deprived social environment, is the satisfaction of the residents: pre and post retrofit surveys revealed that comfort perceived as increased significantly (50% increase) and the number of discomfort situations has decreased dramatically (90% decrease).

Potential for learning or transfer

As part of this practice, Almada incorporated new and innovative technologies, including performance monitoring in the social housing units, a remote monitoring system with sensors for electricity, gas, and water consumption, as well as humidity and temperature sensors. In this sense, Almada’s practice can be potentially interesting for other regions, concentrating on the topics of social housing retrofitting, demand of energy-comfort and performance monitoring.
This practice was transferred to the project partners, from Southern and Eastern Ireland, during the interregional learning events: study visit held in Almada and import workshop held in Cork City. They were particularly interested in Almada’s practice, as there were direct similarities between it and what the Cork City Council was planning to pilot in the apartments being retrofitted under their Regional Operational Programme. Both scenarios involved multiapartment buildings used for social housing.