Pautas para ahorrar energía estas navidades

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Durante las fiestas navideñas uno de los elementos más consumidores de energía, a la vista de todos, es la iluminación de la casa.

En las viviendas unifamiliares se tiene a utilizar adornos luminosos, que a menudo utilizan tecnología halógena, altamente consumidora. Lo mejor es ir progresivamente sustituyéndolo por tecnología led, que preferiblemente incorpore captación solar para funcionar, de manera que estemos anulando el consumo de electricidad por completo. Igualmente sucede en los edificios de viviendas con zonas comunitarias ajardinadas. En los pisos, sin embargo, solamente podemos usar luminarias decorativas led para ahorrar energía.

Por otro lado, el elemento de mayor consumo durante los meses fríos dentro de un hogar en pocas ocasiones se concentra en la iluminación. Hay que poner el foco en los elementos destinados a climatizar la vivienda, calentar el agua, etc como son el aire acondicionado, el termo, la calefacción central etc. En ese sentido, es recomendable regular las temperaturas, ya que el mayor consumo se produce cuando hay grandes saltos a la hora de regularlas y los sistemas tienen que trabajar el doble para alcanzar la temperatura deseada en un momento dado.

  • Ajustar la temperatura entre 17 y 18 grados aunque no estemos dentro de la vivienda.
  • Ajustar la temperatura entre 21 y 22 grados cuando estemos dentro del a vivienda.
  • Regular la temperatura del termostato del calentador a 50 grados en aire acondicionado
  • Cerrar las rejillas de las habitaciones donde no necesites calefactar
  • Cada grado baja un 5-8% consumo por cada grado que lo bajes
  • Con termostatos programables para el termo ahorran, no necesitas todo el volumen de agua caliente agua las 24h.
  • Tener en cuenta la simultaneidad de consumos para evitar los picos.

Guidelines to save energy this Christmas

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During Christmas holidays, one of the most energy-consuming elements, for everyone, is the lighting of the house.

It is usual to use bright ornaments at home, which often use halogen technology, high drain. The best option is to progressively replacing it by LED technology, which preferably incorporates solar collector to run, so we are eliminating electricity consumption completely. The same happens in residential buildings with landscaped communal areas. However, in apartments we can only use LED decorative lights to save energy.

On the other hand, the most energy-consuming element during the cold months inside a home rarely focuses on lighting. Put the focus on the elements designed to heat the house, water heating, etc. such as air conditioning, the heat, central heating, etc. In that sense, it is advisable to regulate temperatures as the highest consumption occurs when there are large jumps and systems have to work twice as hard to reach the desired temperature at a given time.

  • Set the temperature between 17 and 18 degrees although we are not inside the house.
  • Set the temperature between 21 and 22 degrees when we are inside the house.
  • Set the temperature of the heater thermostat to 50 degrees in air conditioning
  • Close grids of rooms which don’t need to be heated
  • Each degree reduces consumption by 5-8%
  • With programmable thermostats to save heat, you do not need the entire volume of hot water 24h.
  • Take into account the simultaneity of consumption to avoid peak.

Save on the wrong side is to spend more for the same

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In a previous post, we talked about the cost overruns in which we could incur trying to lower the price hiring our energy with a trading company. In this post, we would like to focus on raising consumer’s awareness about the importance to make the right decision when he renews, extends or replaces any system or subsystem or any element which contributes to the consumption of an installation.

SMEs struggle every day against all types of external and internal problems, subsisting in increasingly competitive and aggressive environments, where often the only element of concise comparison is the price. As energy costs have increased exponentially in recent years and is expected to continue to do so despite the steady trend of recent months, it has become one more element to consider. It is necessary that purchasing decisions take into account efficiency criteria when implementing corrective measures as well to obey technical needs, as extensions motivated by an expected production growth. If the businessman only wants to give priority to the “cost” of different offers during the purchase process over the energy consumption of those once implemented he will be mistaken, considering that when turning on the switch of what he has installed, he will have to pay the kWh consumption arising. Neither the installer responsible for the execution, nor the engineer who has designed the project, nor the manufacturer of the equipment that has sold him, will pay for him the increase in the invoice. Everyone has a different role and selection criteria should note that the above is met, but none of them will hold what we consume or pay afterwards per unit of production since only an adviser with engineering and technical advice capabilities can do this.

Applying efficiency criteria in any purchasing decision we will obtain clear advantages:

  • Ensure the return on investment by reducing consumption in the case of renovations or improvement of facilities.
  • We will have a clear forecast of energy consumption that allows us to compare between different alternatives.
  • We will reduce maintenance costs since usually selected equipment based on efficiency criteria includes the entire set of items to install: equipment, design, control elements, etc. Increasing energy efficiency means increasing productivity.
  • For every € invested we will recover a part in every kWh consumed. Therefore it is essential to apply efficiency criteria in investment over one year.

Energy efficiency is not a theoretical concept as many believe, it starts from the time when we have to undertake daily costs to upgrade facilities that use are deteriorating. The sooner we understand it, the sooner we will save energy.

Buy at a fixed price or indexed

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Recently the electrical trading companies are betting on offer an indexed price, as there is a growing demand for this type of offer. It is not surprising since traditionally indexed price has always been a way to hire the most economical electrical energy.

Why is that?

To understand we can make a comparison with the banking sector. The fixed rate offered by a bank when hiring a mortgage includes detours costs and the risk of fluctuations involving loss to who sells. Indeed, a fixed price is a risk for whom provides it, such risk, let’s call it warranty, is included in the price we finally pay as an additional cost, as well for the fixed interest in the banking sector or the rate of fixed prices in the energy sector. When buying indexed price, we assume that risk. Therefore it is conceivable that it will be cheaper in the medium term. Given that contracts are signed for one year, the risk is negligible.

There is no free lunch

However, the indexed price is interesting whenever we do not charge commission high costs, also called operating costs or fee. The reasonable cost for SMEs is between 3 and 4 € / MWh hired (estimated consumption from consumer or trading company reading). Naturally this is always subject to consumption. Usually, the greater the consumption, the better trading offer.

We don’t need to understand the energy market. Let’s search a good adviser to tell us and ensure that we are paying the right price and, specially that we are optimised over our competitors.

The energy self-consumption: reality in sight

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Over recent years, the term “self-consumption” in the energy sector has become more common in colloquial language, not always in a positive sense and sometimes with scepticism. Successive changes in legislation have led to confusion on the part of businesses and residential users that, either by conviction or by economic interests, were potentially interested. However, today we can say that we have reached the point where an energy production installation is equal to or less expensive than the same energy contracted to the public network. Photovoltaics, as it says Vozpopuli in its post written by Antonio Muñoz Velez,

“has ceased to be a teenager, much less a spoilt child.”

The self-consumption in Spain is finally a reality in sight.

However, some people are sceptical about real energy savings of a photovoltaic installation, or even if the return on investment makes it interesting to consider this technology. It is shown that a facility today can run completely autonomously through the different systems that exist, but it is true that pretending to supply 100% of the energy demand of any facility can still be somewhat expensive and lead to periods of more distended amortisation so users would be willing to assume. So the question must be asked: do we really need to supply 100% of our energy demand? To see a specific case, if your house is in an area of difficult access to public electricity supply you will need to produce the energy it consumes fully your own way, so it will end up producing 100% of what you need to consume. On the contrary, if you do have access to the public network, it would be possible to establish a project of photovoltaic energy consumption by only provides a part of the energy demand. That way you can save a significant amount in the initial project cost and even significantly reduce the return period.

The same would happen in an industry or a services facility. If further installation requires more energy during the day, its consumption occurs primarily during daylight hours, it is much easier to get this cheaper because it does not need to store energy using batteries that considerably increase the project cost as a whole. In fact, as national legislation is today, according to RD900/2015 based on an earlier draft, the known Net balance which in theory allows pouring into the public network surplus energy produced is not allowed in Spain. This is an additional argument when considering how to maximise the energy produced, if we decided on photovoltaics instead of producing surplus and stored in batteries.

Cheap can be expensive, like energy

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The energy market is currently one of the most dynamic. Since its liberalisation in 1997, with the first Aznar’s term in office, it has become a business for many companies that have decided to invest in energy trading, reaching a considerable turnover, taking into account the business life-cycle of the sector since then.

Today there are more than 420 trading companies located throughout the Spanish territory, whose scope varies depending on their size. Only 80 of them operate nationwide. Good judgement when choosing between this wide range is essential, even if hiring energy is a commodity and has a high cost “the price is not everything“.

When we talk about buying and selling energy we refer to its commercialisation. A final consumer does not buy and does certainly not sell. In colloquial term, he hires energy with one or another company. Hiring a fixed price implies generally to guarantee a price for a year. We often receive annual discounts on fixed prices, but to think that a discount on a fixed price necessarily means a lowering of our current costs in the same proportion as implying the discount itself is a mistake: on the one hand, the discount only applies on the unregulated part, the part set by the commercialisation company represents approximately between 25 and 30 percent of the bill; on the other hand, to determine the actual extent of the discount, the rate on which it will be applied should be at most the same rate we have now hired, otherwise, we could be incurring extra costs.

We have also heard about hiring indexed prices, which implies buying the energy matching the market price adding a sales fee charged by the distributor. In this case, we will not have a fixed price during one year, but our price will vary according to market fluctuations. There’s a lot to talk about this and many ways to compare, but no guarantee to have a specific price since we subject it to daily market fluctuations. So for now, if you decide to hire the indexed price we recommend to order a comparison with past prices and simulated bills, ie, asking the vendor or distributor that simulates us our recent bill with prices he would have said applied during the period we choose to compare.

Notwithstanding the above, it is important to note that, as in all sectors, not all existing deals are equally reliable. Biggest traders provide continuity, but not necessarily a low price. However, we can not choose a small one only for bid price, because the business of buying and selling is complex and any problems arising from poor management by who we hired the energy with can bring us indirect problems. It is therefore better to look for a combination of reliability and price, asking for referrals, finding out the history of the company and finding out if in the recent past has incurred problems. CNMC and BOE pages are sources of useful information.

Sernoven App eficiencia energética Valencia Energy

Sernoven developed an innovative system to predict energy results

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SERNOVEN will put on the market a self-development application and result of the experience accumulated over the years. With this app we aim to make more comfortable and agile the energy management process for engineering companies which provide its services to business and would like to direct it as a technical support and counsel towards energy cost reduction and implementation of cost saving measures. It will also help maintenance technicians with the daily work giving them a new support.

The developed tool allows modeling the pattern of energy consumption of an installation within the tertiary or industrial sector without having to monitor. The application can predict with a high degree of certainty energy consumption and cost associated faced with any change of used variables of the application. Thus, we give to the owner and professionals who ensure the proper functioning of the installation a very powerful tool to simulate the impact of any action or modification of the original model, with the purpose to contrast potential savings in the installation. Furthermore, among others, let make decisions in advance considering the behavior of electricity markets improving energy management.

In addition, the tool let the user to create personalized rates with which, by introducing contract conditions, you will be able to make a comparison of costs for different consumption rates. In this way, the user can determine if the current rate is the most suitable for the installation.

This tool will be connected to the intra-daily market price data for accurate calculations. In later versions, development planning plans to launch an alerts module based on weather forecasts, so that if an engineering services company provides support to customers from different locations, they will be able to give instructions for a more accurate management taking advantage of the conditions and minimizing the impact of ambient temperature changes. This is useful to customize management in cases of multiple supply points scattered throughout the national territory.

With all of the above, it significantly reduces the uncertainty facing making a decision with this tool which can simulate in advance the impact of potential cost-saving measures and energy management, facilitating the work of Management. Once again, the R&D department of Sernoven gets bring value to its customers and be in the forefront of the energy efficiency sector.

electric power Sernoven

Do you need to change the electric power contracted in your home or business? With Sernoven you have all the keys!

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In many cases the electric power contracted does not correspond to the economic optimum value due to the type of consumption and changing legislation which establishes how each type of rate is billed. It is, therefore, to be addressed optimization of this parameter to avoid cost overruns involving not to do it. These are the cases that may arise:

  1. If your contracted electric power is less than 15 kW

Until a couple of years ago in electricity supply contracts with contracted electric power less than 15kW. At that time, the legislation established the need for the Distribution company to install in the electrical panel an ICP (power control switch, interruptor de control de potencia in Spanish) in order to limit the simultaneous maximum electrical power that could consume. The calibre (amperage) of this switch was selected based on the electric power contracted.

With the progressive replacement of analogue by digital electricity meter boxes, the situation changes substantially. The new electronic electricity meter boxes have built-in ICP, which has cutting and rearmament capacity. This can “force” many facilities to adjust the value of electric power contracted to the reality of consumption. As long as the 15kW are not exceeded the process is practically automatic and is done through the trading company with which the supply contract has been signed, (customizing it in the ICP electronic meter box, remote), and signing a new contract that reflects the new power.

Facilities with more than 20 years old must pass an inspection (qualified electrician) and register a Bulletin of the Electrical System to the Distribution company and the Department of Industry.

  1. If your contracted electric power is between 15 kW and 451 kW

    A) Transformer intensity needs to be adapted to new powers.

If the new desired electric power is outside the permissible range determined by the Distribution company according to the electrical system transformer intensity, proceed to its replacement hiring a qualified electrician. This is coordinated first by requesting new powers to the trading company with which the supply contract has been signed and contacting at the same time with the Distribution company to report it, confirming the modifications to be made on transformers and then checking them. It is then a technical and administrative management.

          B) No needs to adapt transformer intensity to new powers.

If the new desired electric power is inside the permissible range determined by the Distribution company according to the electrical system transformer intensity, it is not necessary to proceed to its replacement hiring a qualified electrician. This is coordinated by requesting new powers to the trading company with which the supply contract has been signed. It is then a purely administrative management.

What if we want to increase the contracted power?

Apart from all the above, the situation may be complicated substantially when to request an electrical power increase. Installation requires a new Bulletin of the Electrical System either because not done in his day (no Legalized system), it is not conserved or because the new desired power exceeds the maximum value indicated in the existing Bulletin of the Electrical System.

A) If it is a home, a small business or industry, and want to increase less than half of what had hired or less than 10 kW in housing, 100 kW in small businesses or 20 kW in industry, an electrician can do all formalities and provide the new Bulletin of the Electrical System.

B) If it is a home, a business or an industry and we need to increase more than 50% of what had hired and power is higher than the values indicated in the previous paragraph, in addition to hire an electrician, ask an engineering company that will carry out the necessary project and will legalize it.

To legalize electrical system and obtain a certified electrical system (called Electric Bulletin) it is necessary an electrical project signed by an engineer needs in addition to the paper signed by the electrician in charge of the work. This new bulletin will be required to contract electrical supply, increase contracted power above the maximum value of the existing bulletin and also to obtain the activity license.

C) If the local has public audience, such as large shops, bars, cafes, clubs, etc. An electrician, engineering and OCA (Administrative Certification Organism, Organismo de Certificación Administrativa in Spanish) services for review of the installation whatever the power increase required to perform will be.

It would also be necessary to undertake adaptation works of the installation, which will require at least an electrical connection adaptation and a general automatic switch of the electrical panel as it is an increase of the electric power.

If the distribution network of your consumption does not have enough power available, the Distribution company could request the establishment of a new power line from a transformer center for the distribution, which will also require engineering project. It should also be responsible to hire the work to be done.

Due to the technical and economic implications of all above, on most occasions when you want to increase the electric power contracted, it will be more efficient and profitable perform an optimization study of consumption facilities and optimum power to hire hefting all factors on the line. If you are planning to carry out this improvement, consult our experts where they provide personalized advice and the best solution for your case.

 

Energy efficiency sernoven-eficiencia-energetica-centros-deportivos-2 Energy efficiency

Sernoven, cornerstone for sports centers energy efficiency

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As a result of the experience accumulated on energy efficiency over 5 years, Sernoven has achieved the following excellent results in sports centers energy optimization:

  • Continuous improvement in the performance of Technical and Energy Consulting Service provided for Sports Centers; energy monitoring, changing usage habits, technical management of facilities optimization, maintenance facilities providing optimization, technical adequacy of obsolete or poorly maintained facilities, etc.
  • Through detailed analysis of telemetry data provided by each of the main equipment responsible of the sports facilities consumption, we have achieved to prioritize, according to the guideline customer, measures with less impact on investment and lower amount of savings over those of greater impact on investment and greater amount or vice versa. We reduce up to 40% in electricity bills and as much in thermal bills (gas, oil, etc.) by consulting detail, without necessarily having to take major investments or changes. It should be remembered that funding is provided against cost savings, however small may be the investment.
  • To acquire a deep understanding of the financing models that fit the reality of the sector that has made possible the implementation of energy efficiency measures that require a major investment.
  • Continually increase CUSTOMERS portfolio in this Sector.

sernoven-eficiencia-energetica-centros-deportivos

 

Some important milestones:

  1. Air/water cooler replacement project with a hight efficiency cooler with heat recovery for preheating the ACS (hot water for sanitary uses) and semi-Olympic pool water. ESEER> 5 (cooling and thermal energy)

Investment = 241,000 €

Savings = 50,000 € / year

PRS = 4,8 years

  1. ACS production system replacement project of electrical resistance by high efficiency heat pumps (COP> 4)

Investment = 105,000 €

Savings = 24,000 € / year

PRS = 4.3 years

  1. Implementation of remote monitoring system (TELEMETRY) of electrical energy and natural gas consumption for trading variables and consumption habits optimization.
  2. Adequacy of variables instructions and facilities operation (ACS accumulation temperature, flow pumps, pools seasonal temperature, etc.) to optimize consumption.

Investment = 0€

Savings = 15,000 € / year

From SERNOVEN we offer all our knowledge and experience to improve the management of their facilities, to reduce energy costs and improve service quality to its users.

Sernoven provides service throughout August

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Take advantage of the Sernoven services this summer

During the month of August Sernoven does not close for holidays, but customer service timetable will change. From day 1st to 19th of August, you can contact us between 8:30 and 14:00.
We take this opportunity to wish you a happy summer.