Author: EFICIA

Summer 2023: what are the alternatives to air conditioning in the workplace?

As part of Act 2 of the energy sobriety plan for summer 2023, the French Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, has asked companies to pay attention to energy expenses relating to building ventilation, and in particular recommended not using air conditioning below 26 degrees.

Alric Marc, founder of EFICIA, a company specializing in energy management for commercial buildings, explains: “Occupants tend to ask for 23°C air conditioning in summer. However, we have carried out studies showing that the impact of temperature on behavior and comfort only begins to be felt at 25.5°C“.

“On average, the energy-saving potential of an average store amounts to 20% of its consumption. 30 to 40% of these savings can be made on air conditioning in summer, without impacting on the comfort of its occupants.“

Among the various levers that physical points of sale can deploy to avoid abusing air conditioning, we can cite “free cooling”. This consists in cooling a building with outside air, when its temperature is lower than that of the inside air.

In parallel, the EFICIA teams share a few best practices for transforming companies into a greener, more sustainable energy efficiency model:

• Control air conditioning according to the weather, activity schedules and the building’s thermal inertia. For example, turn off the air conditioning 1 hour before closing to the public.
• Change lighting that is not yet LED.
• Install presence sensors to control lighting in reception, break and passage areas.
• Turn off interior lighting when buildings are closed, and reduce exterior lighting, especially for advertising.
• Install power strips with switches for all workstations, plug in devices that remain on standby (screens, chargers, individual ECLs, wifi relays, etc.) and switch them off each evening when you leave.
• Concentrate staff working in open-plan offices, to free up areas that don’t need to be cooled or lit on busy days.

The 3-step summer energy sobriety plan for your commercial buildings.

The transition to a more sustainable, environmentally-friendly economy should be a major concern for all businesses today. Excessive energy consumption is not only costly, it also contributes to global warming and the depletion of natural resources. Faced with these challenges, it is essential for companies to rethink their practices and adopt concrete measures to reduce their ecological footprint.

Our plan offers a series of ideas to help you effectively reduce your company’s energy consumption. Whether you run a small business or a large organization, you’ll discover practical, accessible tips for optimizing your energy resources and making significant savings.

Ready to transform your business into a greener, more sustainable model of energy efficiency?

Actions your technical team can take

• Limit air-conditioning to 25° or 26°, and keep the difference with the outside temperature to 8°.
• Control air conditioning according to the weather, activity schedules and the building’s thermal inertia. For example, turn off the air conditioning 1 hour before closing to the public.
• Condition air renewal according to air quality only, and recommend free-cooling (bringing in fresh air) when weather conditions allow.
• Change lighting that is not yet LED.
• Install presence sensors to control lighting in reception, break and passage areas.
• Limit lighting between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. in particular (peak daytime hours) and until nightfall.
• Turn off interior lighting when buildings are closed, and reduce exterior lighting, especially for advertising.
• Install power strips with switches for all workstations, and plug in devices that remain on standby (screens, chargers, individual ECLs, wifi relays, etc.).
• Switch off wifi when offices are closed.
• Limit the amount of equipment and avoid over-sizing (number of screens, size of screens, power of hardware in relation to requirements, etc.).

Recommendations for your employees

• Switch off your computer and telephone at night.
• Switch off your workstation’s power supply every evening when you leave.
• Clean out your inbox every month.
• Reduce or turn off non-essential audiovisual systems, such as projectors or screens in reception halls or cafeterias during peak hours (8am-1pm and 5pm-8pm).
• Favoring soft mobility or public transport.
• Don’t charge your electric vehicle during peak hours (between 8am and 1pm and between 5pm and 8pm), preferring off-peak hours (between 1pm and 5pm & 10pm and 4am or on weekends).
• Limit elevator use whenever possible.
• Dress for the heat (if you’re wearing a sweater in summer, it’s because the air conditioning is too strong!)
• Close doors to prevent heat loss or heat gain.

Guidelines your management can follow

• Concentrate employees who work in open-plan offices, to free up areas that should not be cooled or lit on low-traffic days.
• Organize an energy-saving competition between the company’s different offices, using the Eficia application.
• Raise employee awareness of energy efficiency issues through regular educational messages.
• Organize work so as to facilitate employee commuting outside peak traffic hours wherever possible.
• Source suppliers and partners locally, to reduce the number of kilometers covered by products.
• Prefer reconditioned equipment (computers, telephones, etc.).
• Raise employee awareness of eco-driving and offer training courses.
• Pool and limit meal deliveries by opening a Canteen 2.0.

Extended BACS decree: an important decision

A few weeks ago, the French government extended the BACS decree to all buildings covered by the tertiary sector decree, of which only a small fraction are currently equipped. All tertiary buildings with equipment rated at ≥ 70 kW (around 1,000 m2) will now have to be equipped with energy management systems by 2027.

An important and unavoidable decision if the objectives of the tertiary sector decree are to be met! BMS is undoubtedly the most cost-effective way of taking direct and lasting action to reduce energy consumption in buildings.

However, implementing such a system alone is not enough, and requires a number of additional elements:

1/ Technological tools that enable real-time monitoring of the building’s condition, necessary for understanding how the site operates and adapting consumption.

Coupled with an intelligent control solution, the possibilities offered by BMS are multiplied tenfold. For example, it is now possible to optimize equipment operation automatically via algorithms that take into account key data such as: presence schedules, indoor and outdoor temperature, building thermal inertia, weather forecasts, air quality, planned activities in different areas of the site, etc.

2/ Human expertise to support optimization operations by continuously correcting and adapting operating scenarios.

BMS also provides information on the performance of heating and ventilation systems, enabling managers to monitor and anticipate their day-to-day management through predictive analysis.

The data collected is obviously used to identify energy-saving potential, and areas for improvement, enabling rapid adjustments to reduce operating costs.

In regulatory terms, the BACS decree is an opportunity for companies to turn an apparent constraint into a lever for success, enabling them to implement an efficient, sustainable energy policy under the best possible conditions, and achieve the objectives of the tertiary sector decree.

Water emergencies in France: technology for rapid action

On March 30, President Emmanuel Macron presented the Water Plan, announcing his desire to work with local authorities “to make smart meters widespread, starting of course with the biggest water users.”

Julien Bellynck, Managing Director of EFICIA, a French expert in energy management for tertiary buildings and local authorities, explains that “this work will generate savings if and only if a decree is published to make water consumption data ‘available to any designated third party in an open standard, easily reusable and exploitable by an automated processing system, as is the case for electricity and gas’.”

Indeed, while network operators read data from remotely-readable meters and send invoices to the nearest cubic meter consumed, they do not share this data with companies in the ecosystem, as they have no legal obligation to make this data accessible to independent third parties. In other words, this data is only used for billing purposes, not to save money.

Julien Bellynck continues, “We know today, thanks to the Observatoire des données d’eau et d’assainissement (SISPEA), that around 20% to 25% of the water transported by the urban network is lost through leaks. Installing new smart, communicating meters will not solve this problem. On the contrary, sharing consumption data could provide a concrete solution to the water challenge. This would enable players like us to create an API to monitor consumption and identify incidents leading to leakage or overconsumption, as we do for electricity and gas.“

EFICIA is therefore campaigning within Frenchtech for this data to be opened up. The expert is also planning to add water supervision to its services, but this remains conditional on access to the data. EFICIA could then send alerts in the event of overconsumption or leaks, and help companies and local authorities monitor and reduce their water consumption.

EFICIA is also planning to add water monitoring to its 100% free application for monitoring and analyzing consumption, currently dedicated to electricity and gas, and accessible to all: individuals, businesses and local authorities.

Technology as a remedy?

Despite the arrival of spring and the long-awaited onset of winter, the electricity market is not letting up. Since mid-March, forward contract prices for the coming winter have been rising in France. These contracts are essential for energy suppliers and businesses, enabling them to cover future consumption.

Currently, electricity contracts for 2024 are trading at an average of 213 euros per MWh in France, and these prices are significantly higher than in neighboring countries. In Germany, for example, electricity prices for the fourth quarter of 2023 did not exceed 150 euros per MWh.

At a time when benchmark energy prices are skyrocketing, innovations are flourishing to help companies and public organizations reduce their consumption. Technology is omnipresent in solutions designed to support the transition to more sustainable modes of production and consumption.

Among these technologies, Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things are particularly promising. They enable us to monitor and optimize the energy consumption of buildings, industries and even entire cities in real time.

Connected buildings equipped with smart sensors and actuators, for example, can automatically adjust temperature, lighting and ventilation according to the presence and habits of occupants, but also to the weather and its inertia. The IoT also enables better management of power grids and more efficient integration of renewable energies.

In addition, energy storage technologies, such as batteries, should help solve the problem of intermittent renewable energy sources. Advances in this field will make batteries more affordable and more efficient, enabling us to store large volumes of energy produced by solar panels and wind turbines.

Finally, innovations in electric mobility and green hydrogen offer more sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels in the transport sector.

The opportunities are there, we just have to seize them.

According to the IPCC scenarios, technological progress will be an important factor in achieving our low-carbon objectives and limiting global warming.

Ultimately, the energy crisis at European level represents an opportunity to accelerate this transition and combat global warming, by massively introducing technologies into our new uses.

Time will tell.

Extension of the BACS decree: A major opportunity, but doubts remain.

With a view to meeting the consumption reduction targets set by the tertiary sector decree, the BACS (Building Automation & Control Systems) decree has been enriched by a major amendment. While it initially required new or existing buildings with a rated output of more than 290 kW to be equipped with a system for controlling and regulating the temperature of heating and cooling equipment by 2025, it now applies to all buildings with an output of more than 70 kW, i.e. almost all commercial buildings. While this extension, with a deadline of January 1, 2027, demonstrates a definite step forward by the State in terms of energy consumption, and offers undeniable advantages for businesses, it is nonetheless a new obligation without penalties that may not have the desired effect.

A gas pedal of the global energy transition.

No, this evolution of the BACS decree is not an addendum detailing a few new administrative formalities to be followed, but a complementary brick in the continuation of the national policy which aims to achieve 40% energy savings by 2030, thereby reducing France’s and Europe’s dependence on gas. With 43% of France’s annual energy consumption and 23% of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, France has decided to step up a gear with industry players, with a view to achieving a benchmark level of energy performance in the construction and renovation of buildings.

The enhanced BACS decree, which complements the tertiary sector decree, is far more far-reaching than the tertiary sector decree, since it can ultimately affect 90% of all commercial buildings, thanks in particular to a return on investment of just a few months rather than the 6 years required by law, which makes the clause on exempted cases virtually non-existent. It is also a powerful incentive, enabling companies to make immediate and easy energy savings of 15-20% with little investment, thanks to subsidies. It also represents an opportunity for them to accelerate their trajectory towards carbon neutrality and prepare for future restrictions. There’s no doubt that the law will encourage more widespread and systematic efforts to reduce energy consumption.

Real advantages, but are they enough?

With the cost of energy set to remain high in view of the current crisis, which heralds the end of free energy, and an alignment with the rest of Europe, companies have every interest in complying with their obligations to remain competitive thanks to the savings they make. This competitive advantage is reinforced by a system of additional bonuses decided by the State to ensure that the most polluting activities can implement the systems recommended by means of energy saving certificates.

This mechanism enables them to obtain a return on investment that is calculated in months rather than years! At the same time, companies can prepare for the future and gradually make their buildings intelligent: first and foremost energy-efficient, they will be upgraded to be more connected, durable, comfortable and efficient, even supplying the national power grid. By seizing the opportunity to rethink their infrastructures now, they will be 80% of the way to tomorrow.

And yet, despite the many advantages, the latest version of the BACS decree remains an obligation that carries no penalty if not followed. There is therefore a potential risk that it will be just another straw in the wind, for want of sufficient consideration.

The amendment to the BACS decree confirms France’s maturity in energy issues, its role as a laboratory and its dominant position. The Hexagone is tending to become a leader in the field, thanks in particular to the major players in the building industry and electrical equipment manufacturers in its fold. However, although this legal obligation adds a new stone to its edifice, it reveals incompleteness and a long way to go, as we are still only at the educational stage.

The regulatory constraints of the BACS decree are becoming stricter

What is the BACS decree? The decree on automation and control systems for commercial buildings (known as the BACS decree) makes it compulsory, by the end of 2024, to install a BMS in all new and existing buildings with a heating or air-conditioning capacity in excess of 290 kW.

According to the decree, the BMS must control at least the functions of heating, cooling, ventilation, domestic hot water production, lighting and on-site electricity production. New decree to tighten obligations Regulatory constraints on the obligation to install BMSs under the BACS decree are set to get tougher with the publication of a new decree very soon. It will make it mandatory to install a BMS from 70kW of heating or air-conditioning output (versus 290kW in the initial decree) for new buildings one year after publication of the decree, and from 2027 for existing buildings.

This new threshold of 70kW, which corresponds to a building surface area of around 1000m2, extends the number of companies and buildings subject to the obligation. It also reinforces the maintenance requirement for technical systems connected to a BMS, and introduces a mandatory inspection of these same BMS to verify their proper operation over time and compliance with the decree’s provisions.

Financial assistance for companies installing a system GTB system installation currently benefits from advantageous aid in the form of Energy Savings Certificates (CEE). These are obtained for the installation of a BMS or the upgrading of an existing system. The condition for these CEE is that the installation project must be undertaken before January 1, 2025. What’s more, to accelerate the deployment of these control systems, an additional subsidy has been created for the installation or upgrading of a GTB system by the end of 2023.

This bonus multiplies CEE grants by a factor of 1.5 to 2. So don’t delay in installing or upgrading your centralized control system to benefit. An apparent constraint that represents a new lever for energy transition Installing a centralized control system is the first step in a plan to reduce energy consumption across a portfolio of buildings. In fact, BMS is an operational tool that can only help you achieve the objectives of the BACS decree, as well as the tertiary sector decree, which calls for a substantial reduction in energy consumption by 2023.

And, even if many professionals see these decrees and their amendments as a major constraint and a major investment to be made in the more or less short term, this obligation can only help companies to take concrete action to reduce their energy consumption.

Finally, coupled with a genuine equipment control solution, BMS will be the best ally professionals have in tackling soaring prices and reducing the burden of building operating costs on company budgets.

EFICIA’s 100% free application integrates gas data

EFICIA offers companies, local authorities and private individuals the first professional application solution on the market enabling them to monitor and analyze their electricity and gas consumption, in order to reduce their bills and their energy impact.

6 months ago, EFICIA, an innovative company specializing in energy management for commercial buildings and local authorities, launched a brand new free online tool, L’Application, designed to democratize access to and analysis of electricity consumption data. Today, EFICIA is going one step further by integrating gas data into its solution and making it available on Android for even greater ease of use.

How can you reduce your electricity and gas consumption when you don’t really know how energy is consumed, or what performance can be improved?

Through The Application, EFICIA aims to help everyone cushion the effects of price rises and rethink their consumption. This approach is totally free of charge, since EFICIA does not collect any data from users of The Application; all data entered in The Application remains the property of the users alone.

Thanks to the new functions, any user with one or more smart gas meters will be able to :

retrieve up to 3 years’ worth of data

• access their meter’s technical and contractual data: what is the rate? Is it remotely read?

• view gas consumption curves for each meter individually, or by adding them together to get an overall view of the site;
• analyze the impact of outside temperature on gas consumption, thanks to juxtaposed curves;
• quickly view consumption data for meters that publish data on a daily basis (which concerns ~10 million gas meters in France) and for monthly meters (~100,000 meters in France).

“Against a backdrop of inflation and the energy crisis, where electricity and gas prices have soared, sometimes – not to say too often – making our energy consumption a real survival issue, it was important to us to help as many people as possible. We have therefore optimized the Application with new functionalities integrating gas data.

Today, anyone – individuals, businesses or local authorities – can benefit free of charge from a decision-making tool – more comprehensive than most paying tools on the market – to help them reduce their electricity and gas consumption”, explains Alric Marc, founder and president of EFICIA.

And of course, when it comes to electricity, all you need is a meter number to get a complete overview of consumption. Whatever the type of site (point of sale, industrial, offices, individual housing, etc.), you can :

• get an overall view of consumption, thanks to a multi-year history,
• be alerted in the event of over-consumption,
• track performance indicators,
• set consumption thresholds,
• analyze trends in energy performance,
• compare sites of the same type.

The application is available free of charge on the EFICIA website, from the app page, and as a download from Google Play Store.

Time change: could GreenTech have made time change obsolete?

In France, the time change as we know it today was introduced in 1976, three years after the first oil crisis, which had major economic and environmental consequences for Western countries.

This period marked the embryonic start of the first European actions in favor of the environment. In fact, this measure began as an idea of Benjamin Franklin’s, and was finally implemented during the dark years of the 1st World War to “participate” in the war effort, before being abandoned in 1945.

Twenty-five years after it was harmonized at EU level, the question now arises as to whether it is still relevant to maintain this policy, which is producing fewer and fewer benefits. This question is all the more pertinent as the energy savings produced by technologies developed by the ecosystem’s GreenTechs are generating far more results.

The aim of the time change was to synchronize natural sunlight with our human activities, in order to limit the use of artificial lighting in particular, which is a major source of energy consumption, especially in local authorities. Since the early 2000s, the results of the time change have been increasingly anecdotal, offset by the massive development of environmental innovations that have led to significant reductions in our energy consumption.

In 1996, the time change produced savings of 1,200 GWh per year, dropping to 351 GWh in 2016 according to figures from the French Ministry of Industry, EDF and ADEME.

How have technologies outperformed the time change?

The drop in savings produced by the time change is explained in particular by the widespread use of more efficient lighting systems such as low-energy light bulbs and LED systems. The results are also offset by an increase in consumption linked to air conditioning, heating and electrical appliances, the use of which is increasing over the years.

According to ADEME, the decline would continue over the next few years if the time change were retained.

What’s more, certain economic sectors, such as tourism or leisure, can benefit from summer time, while others, like agriculture or transport, may be penalized. But that’s not all. Today, the savings generated by some GreenTech companies far exceed those generated by the time change. The results produced by the ecosystem today are boosted by technologies that are making continuous progress, a difficult market context and regulations in France that have become much stricter under the impetus of the tertiary sector decree.

Beyond the obsolescence of an increasingly unrealistic policy, couldn’t we make the development of GreenTech and its technologies a national issue?

AI for building energy management

With the environmental challenges we face, the energy performance of buildings has become a priority for many professionals. In France, the tertiary sector alone accounts for 17% of national energy consumption, in fourth place behind transport (32%), residential (29%) and industry (19%).

BMS: a reliable, technological data source for setting your energy targets

Over the last ten years or so, large companies have embraced the digital revolution, integrating new uses into their property management processes, notably through the implementation of building management systems. These control systems represent a veritable gold mine, often under-exploited, enabling the concentration of energy data from meters, sensors, PLCs and connected objects, for a real-time vision of the company’s assets and the setting of energy performance targets. This hardware and technology is the first step in a smart building strategy.

Through BMS systems, the use of Big Data in building energy management has encouraged the emergence of entirely new types of services, notably through the introduction of artificial intelligence.

AI has thus become one of the driving forces behind the energy transition, helping to identify the main areas for optimization and set investment plans to comply with BACS and Tertiary regulations. With this new type of data, buildings become more “readable” in terms of their consumption behavior, which can be analyzed and optimized in real time.

At Eficia, human expertise completes the useful data analysis combo.

Lighting control to simulate human intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the set of technologies used to create machines capable of simulating human intelligence. It is based on algorithms that enable BMS, for example, to process data and learn from it. Control systems can thus improve as they process new data, enabling them to solve complex problems autonomously, such as anticipating ignition scenarios on HVAC equipment.

With Artificial Intelligence, the building also integrates occupant usage much more effectively, as well as the impact of external elements on its thermal inertia, which can be anticipated thanks to the intelligent algorithms we are developing. With AI, decisions and scenarios improve with each iteration, contributing to the building’s sustainability. 

Your energy data is a performance lever for your business

Artificial Intelligence opens up access to early detection of energy consumption drift, and revolutionizes the real-time aspect of decision-making for operational teams. This new technological foundation, a key element of smart building, translates complex building data and energy expertise knowledge into a unified operational concept that can be automated, fast and accessible to all – all with a computing speed incomparable with that possible by human teams.

With Artificial Intelligence, the building finally becomes “smart” and acquires a new analytical capacity for anticipating usage and proposing new scenarios, by integrating a wealth of data that would be impossible for the occupant and/or manager. The building thus behaves more dynamically in relation to its occupants.  Continuously integrated and analyzed data includes :

• The various activities planned in the building’s different zones: occupancy schedules, current and future occupancy, planned events, alarm signals, etc.
• The building’s thermal characteristics: thermal inertia, exposure to radiation, activities affecting current and future temperatures
• Equipment coordination and operability: coordination between equipment, consideration of equipment availability at time t, current breakdowns
• Weather forecasts: increases and decreases in temperature, wind and radiation at time T and in the future.
• Air quality in the building: CO2 and humidity, opportunity or necessity to renew the air.
• Contractual energy supply conditions: subscribed power, peak/off-peak hours, etc.
• Opportunities for network shedding
• Regular review of HVAC equipment parameters
• Business constraints of building occupants and/or customers

Give your building a brain with a control solution

Making buildings intelligent, capable of self-regulation while remaining remotely controllable, is the quickest and least intrusive way to save energy and facilitate building operation.

In fact, by integrating and exploiting this data, AI makes it possible to understand and anticipate the uses of a building’s occupants, and suggest new settings.

The direct results are reduced energy consumption and costs; lower breakdown rates, less wear and tear, shorter intervention times; fewer unnecessary or ineffective maintenance operations; increased equipment availability, service quality and responsiveness; and improved occupant comfort.