Energy management, marketing or need? Improvement with Energy-Saving Building Automation

Abstract

ABSTRACT: One of the problems that threaten the well-being of today's society is Climate Change. Climate Change occurs due to an increase in the level of emissions of greenhouse gasses, mainly CO2, to the environment. The industrial sector is one of the most significant contributors to this phenomenon due, among other factors, to the energy consumption. Hence, the interest in energy efficiency and in minimizing environmental impacts has increased. On this basis, it has been encouraged the use of tools or methodologies to know, evaluate and reduce the energy used for constructions. This Final Dissertation seeks to be a continuation of the thesis that I developed one year ago, in which an attempt was made to answer whether Energy Management is marketing or a clear necessity that all businesses and institutions should implement and to identify the profitability (economic and financial), productivity and competitiveness of certified systems of energy management in order to obtain relevant information on the effects of its implementation in Spain, in which it was concluded that it was beneficial in both directions, a need to implement it for the savings achieved and an extra economic benefit reported by "green company" marketing. The previous Master Thesis was developed using conventional methods of action, now it is intended to take the next step, trying to improve the results with the implementation of automatisms. This thesis attempts to investigate whether the implementation of automatisms in buildings is profitable or not. To answer this question, a series of concepts such as the current state of energy, types of automatisms and smart cities are put in context and the reasoning for implementing an energy management system is explained. Next, the European regulations and legislations regarding efficiency and energy management are described. After the introductory part of the subject matter, this thesis investigates through a case study in the city of Cañada del Hoyo, Cuenca, whether it is cost-effective to implement a system of energy management improvement with Energy-Saving Building automation or not. At last, in order to evaluate the energy performance and identify energy efficiency measures that have achieved a reduction in costs and environmental pollution through energy savings, this work identifies the potential energy savings and the investments on energy efficiency measures needed to achieve these savings.