Exploring EVELIXIA - Putting People at the Heart of Energy Management

by Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA)

Europe set up incentive mechanisms to hit its climate ambitions, offering emission trading opportunities, subsidies, tax breaks and trading flexibilities like the purchase of energy quotas between member countries. These systems are the Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), the Effort Sharing legislation defining the national GHG reduction targets and the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF). In addition, Europe is promoting local energy communities and new energy trading markets through various policies: Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), Clean Energy Package and Electricity Regulation. Finally, Europe also intends to promote the generalisation of peer-to-peer energy trading solutions.

The current model for reducing greenhouse gas emissions therefore relies primarily on new markets for trading GHG emissions or energy, as well as economic incentives targeting individuals with the knowledge, financial resources and assets needed to invest in renewable and sustainable solutions.

The CEA would like to challenge the social equity of this orientation.

Are the new energy markets or emission trading people-centred? Is this model widely scalable and affordable for all? How can we meet the challenge of offsetting GHG emissions by organising ourselves collectively without leaving anyone behind? How to do it together and not separately?

To address this issue, CEA is developing five different tools for the EVELIXIA project, to give occupants, whether they are tenants or owners, control over their own comfort, and to give operators and owners a better understanding of the energy assets status. These digital solutions are designed to use energy more effectively. They optimise the use of available renewable energy, dispatch loads using the flexibility of energy assets to respond to network stresses, and extend the lifespan and availability of energy systems. All of this must be achieved while taking into account well-being, thermal comfort and occupant behaviour, as well as the sustainability of HVAC systems, which is also of interest to building owners. Tenants are therefore involved in this adaptation process, tuning parameters according to their personal acceptance and benefiting directly from lower energy bills. Property owners and stakeholders involved in the construction phase of buildings also profit from more sustainable and reliable systems to maintain.

CEA’s Indoor Air Quality tool provides information related to the air quality that could be related to CO₂ concentration or humidity levels in living indoor environments. This tool predicts window openings by occupants as well as accounting for the potential of natural ventilation, thus enabling an accurate prediction of IAQ. Based on this outcome, an Energy Management System optimises the energy consumption of HVAC systems depending on the building thermal characteristics, the heating and cooling systems features, as well as the RES availability and the grid supply energy prices, while still guaranteeing occupant comfort. These two programs feed into each other, placing people at the heart of the control system.

The three other innovative solutions developed by CEA address the availability rate and the lifespan of energy flexibility-related assets such as batteries, battery container cooling systems and hot water tanks. Batteries offer flexibility to the whole energy supply chain. It is essential to monitor battery energy storage systems and their cooling systems since they provide the grid with flexibility and stability by responding to frequency variations caused by the constant fluctuations in load and energy production from RES over time. Detecting limescale deposits in hot water tanks, connected to a district heating or supplying Domestic Hot Water to households also contribute to guaranteeing comfort standards in line with our Western lifestyles.

CEA’s predictive maintenance tools are all based on continuous close monitoring, using the existing sensors. They help to increase the flexibility potential to be managed by the EMS. Ensuring high availability, sustainability, and reliability of energy equipment is essential to maintaining comfort while optimising energy costs, both in capitalisation and operation expenditures. Furthermore, the close monitoring of these devices enables a more effective planning of maintenance downtime, by easing the mental burden on occupants.

In conclusion, the digital solutions developed by CEA throughout the EVELIXIA project will empower occupants, particularly tenants, to take control of their comfort and energy bills in accordance with their level of acceptance. These solutions are still in the testing phase, but it would be relevant to implement them in all space-heated or air-conditioned buildings, since they also help alleviate instability issues in the grid for the benefit of us all and extend the lifespan and availability of energy assets. This could be achieved with the support of national policies.