Targeting energy efficiency in non-residential university buildings, a three-year a Europe-wide SMART CAMPUS project reached 30% energy savings, 10% beyond the expected 20%. The project gives strong proof that the EU’s energy efficiency target of 20% by 2020 is well within reach.

Funded by the European Commission, SMART CAMPUS uses cutting edge ICT including Enoro’s centralized meter data management, GENERIS.

“Information technology is key to energy efficiency. GENERIS collected the energy consumption data from the pilot campuses, validated it, and provided the campuses with feedback on how the forecast compared to the actual results,” said Anders H. Lier, president and CEO, Enoro.

“The GENERIS platform is very suitable for collecting data, validating it and providing feedback to the user because it integrates easily with several different metering systems, as was the case with the Smart Campus pilots.”

The project outcome was very positive, as the pilots attained major energy savings in different locations and with different test scenarios.

In Luleå, Sweden, over 20% energy was saved in office space and car heater experiments.

In Lisbon, Portugal, new apps were created that enabled the students to vote for the kind of lighting and temperature conditions in the campus areas.

The pilot campus in Helsinki, Finland, successfully tested several lighting scenarios resulting in concrete energy saving investment plans as well as reaching around 20% savings by training the kitchen staff.

In the Milan, Italy, pilot using automated system sensors, involving the campus community and implementing new smart solutions resulted in savings from 30% up to 60% in heating, HVAC and lighting scenarios.

The three-year project led to a Green paper policy recommendation, which was published to guide European policy makers and others in the future.

“It is clear that the tools to reach and even surpass the goals set for energy efficiency already exist and they can be achieved on a European-wide scale,” said Lier.

Truong Duy