Increased Focus on Building Energy Efficiency Gains

Efficient energy use, sometimes called energy efficiency, is the goal to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home or implementing smart energy-saving technology allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature.

Buildings are responsible for 40% of the energy consumption and 36% of the CO2 emissions in the EU.

Energy efficiency is key to ensuring a safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy system for the future. It is the one energy resource that every country possesses in abundance and is the quickest and least costly way of addressing energy security, environmental and economic challenges.

Buildings consume a lot of energy

Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the EU. Currently, about 35% of the EU’s buildings are over 50 years old, and almost 75% of the building stock is energy inefficient, while only 0.4-1.2% (depending on the country) of the building stock is renovated each year [European Union Statistics].

Improving the energy efficiency of buildings can also generate other economic, social, and environmental benefits. Better performing buildings provide higher levels of comfort and wellbeing for their residents and improve health by reducing illnesses caused by a poor indoor climate.

So, it’s logical that property owners increase their focus on finding ways to improve the energy efficiency in their building stock.

What can we do about it?

There is much talk today about the importance of the renovation of buildings as a critical activity to improve energy efficiency. But this is not a fast route to have any significant impact on the total energy consumption, especially considering the statistics from the EU above.

At Egain, we think differently. Intelligent energy optimization technologies can solve the challenge of both reducing energy consumption and doing it quickly and affordably.

By linking intelligent software, big data, and human expertise, this technology can quickly produce self-optimized and energy-efficient buildings. To date, many property owners and managers have hesitated to add these technologies to their property because they mistakenly believe they require high upfront costs and generate a slow return.

Since it is possible to apply Egain technology to existing control systems, property managers and owners can implement the solution without absorbing the prohibitive cost of reprogramming. That benefit is made even more significant by the fact that optimizing energy use has an immediate, measurable savings impact, and continues to improve cost efficiencies over time.

The financial return is only one benefit for property management. An intelligent energy optimization technology system will produce a host of benefits:

• Improve the quality of life for residents. User-friendly, smart, self-regulated energy optimization systems balance indoor climate to give tenants the most comfortable indoor environments throughout the year.
• Decrease adverse environmental effects. Self-regulated energy optimization helps lower CO2 emissions and improve the ecological footprint of the property from day one.
• Simplify your job. Understanding the energy consumption of the property makes it easier to reduce risks, maintenance costs, and energy costs quickly.