Today, more than ever, energy efficiency is of great importance and is related to a good resources management, therefore no matter how much you spend on technological equipments, if the energy resources are not managed efficiently, wasting is close-at-hand. For this reason, it is essential to have a global control of energy resources. Zucchetti produces technological systems for the intelligent management of energy flows, in order to undertake all the actions aimed to strongly reduce consumption and costs. The ZEnergy system provides an innovative service for energy efficiency measurement, accounting and monitoring of the environmental quality within the buildings, according to the parameters imposed by sustainable construction principles.
The European Directive 2012/27 makes the goal of making a 20% improvement in energy efficiency by 2020 binding, and requires organizations (real estate assets, public administration, industries) to carry out real energy performance improvement interventions in their assets. Commercial buildings absorb 40% of total energy demand (Source: USA Energy Department).
Excluding labor costs, energy costs account for 30% of a building’s total running costs and even more so in Italy, where energy bills are 18% higher than the European average. Italy has acknowledged the European Directive by means of a specific decree that provides for the adoption of structural measures and technological tools that aid energy efficiency. This is why Zucchetti is studying solutions that allow companies and organizations to compete in the energy and facility management market, also in observance of ISO 50001 energy saving certification.
ZEnergy is the Energy Management solution dedicated to monitoring consumption, environmental parameters and to analyzing energy efficiency that allows you to organize energy cost saving.
Thanks to the full integration with ZMaintenance, Zucchetti’s software to control technical and maintenance activities, ZEnergy allows to manage all technical and maintenance processes of the managed asset. A particular focus is set on the management of energy plants, such as the management of the plant and of the thermal power station documents.
The offer of access control – sector in which Zucchetti is the leader – video surveillance and anti-intrusion solutions, together with the energy and maintenance software solution, makes Zucchetti a reliable and preferred partner, to contact when the integration of advanced building automation systems is needed.
The hardware system is composed of the following elements:
The software system is the application dedicated to Building Energy Management. The application is fitted with standard functions, such as data acquisition, storage, aggregation, control, analysis and many more.
Why is it important to be energy efficient?The main problem in today’s world is that, in a global context where energy is still largely obtained from combustible fossils - and will continue to be that way for several years - the enormous, growing use of energy brings with it significant consequences of pollution and global warming, due to the high greenhouse effect emissions.
The realization thus dawned - and political initiatives and regulations have been developed in this sense - that in addition to reducing greenhouse gases and to aiding renewable sources, it is vital to set up energy saving and efficiency initiatives, using newly-developed technologies, that allow for improved energy performance.
Which legislative directives on energy efficient exist ?Worldwide, several protocols and agreements have been signed in recent years, the latest of which being the Paris Convention in 2015, which commits the countries to limiting global warming to 1.5 OC by 2050.
In 2007 the European Union set the 20-20-20 plan, the main goals of which - to be achieved by 2020 - are:
European legislation has been increased and updated, in particular with Directive 2012/27/EU on energy efficiency that was acknowledged in July 2014 in Italy, by the coming into force of the legislative decree 102/2014. Among other things, this decree imposes an energy audit on energy-intensive companies.
What is an energy audit?An energy audit is a set of actions and interventions - that are mandatory for some types of companies - aimed at analyzing and evaluating diagnostics, at rationalizing and optimizing energy performance and consumption and at reducing pollution emissions in a building.
What are the energy certifications? The main certifications are:
What support does ZEnergy software provides in energy efficiency management?ZEnergy is an “intelligent” software package for monitoring and analyzing energy consumption. In this sense, it supports all the companies that must carry out energy audits and aids the updating to and observance of legislation, protocols and national and international standards.
ZEnergy is therefore an essential tool for having true energy efficiency, guaranteeing 15% saving on energy costs in the first year of use alone.
The four winning steps for exploiting the solution’s potential to the maximum: TRACKDetection and recording of plant energy consumption
The system uses detection sensors (network analyzers, electrical meters, capacity gauges, etc) that are connected to data collection centers and read/remotely read company energy consumption.
VISUALIZETools for reading energy consumption and environmental parameter trends in real time.
The consumption data reach the software in real time, allowing it to be monitored and analyzed, together with environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, brightness, air quality etc.
ANALYZEAnalysis and reporting functions for understanding data and identifying any sources for saving
Standard and customized reports are possible for the control and analysis of energy consumption and costs, for defining an energy balance and understanding the company areas with the highest energy impact.
SAVE AND SHAREDefinition and monitoring of saving projects for upgrading interventions
The system supports technical/maintenance and energy management managers in analyzing energy management systems, highlighting any anomalies in the energy production systems and creating energy models for energy-saving purposes. It is also possible to analyze the energy bills and compare tariffs and different energy buying options, to save on and plan energy costs.
HARDWARE COMPONENTSThe ZEnergy system comprises the following hardware elements:
The detection sensors monitor consumption data for analytical reporting and send them to the centers via standard communication interfaces. The centers save the data on the non-volatile memory and make them available externally, sending them to a remote server. The server manages the data via the web and processes them thanks to specific algorithms, which allow ZEnergy to manage and analyze them for any type of need.
