{"id":57151,"date":"2018-11-21T10:33:35","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T08:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/?p=57151"},"modified":"2018-11-22T13:14:39","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T11:14:39","slug":"an-important-property-often-missed-in-green-buildings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/an-important-property-often-missed-in-green-buildings\/","title":{"rendered":"An important property often missed in green buildings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/an-important-property-often-missed-in-green-buildings\/themo-article\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-57157\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-57157\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/themo-article-1024x576.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/themo-article-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/themo-article-600x338.jpeg 600w, https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/themo-article-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/themo-article-768x432.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/themo-article-400x225.jpeg 400w, https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/themo-article-200x113.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/themo-article.jpeg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Following is the article about the future of the buildings by Madis Uuemaa, who participated in the first greentech conference in Estonia organized by Science Park Tehnopol \u2013 GreenEST Summit 2018. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It was a pleasure to participate last month in the\u00a0<a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ix2NZ4w4BN0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ix2NZ4w4BN0\">GreenEST Summit<\/a>. Big thanks to\u00a0<a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/event\/greenest-summit-2018-future-for-buildings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/event\/greenest-summit-2018-future-for-buildings\/\">Tehnopol<\/a>\u00a0for inviting\u00a0<a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themo.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-href=\"http:\/\/www.themo.io\">Themo<\/a>\u00a0as one of the innovative start-ups showcase. Participating in such an event creates a lot of valuable discussions with different visionaries of green and energy efficient buildings.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"d5eb\" class=\"graf graf--h3 graf-after--figure\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Why green buildings matter?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p id=\"069b\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Conventional buildings have a substantial impact on the health and wellbeing of people and the planet. They use resources, generate waste, and emit greenhouse gases throughout their life cycle which can be 50, 75, or more years.<\/p>\n<p id=\"b80c\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Buildings are responsible for approximately\u00a0<strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">40%<\/strong>\u00a0of energy consumption and\u00a0<strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">36%<\/strong>\u00a0of CO2 emissions in the EU. Inevitably, the way we build, has to change and straight away!<\/p>\n<p id=\"d30f\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, the green building is not something new that is built in the future\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s the existing buildings that need to be turned green!<\/p>\n<p id=\"3aaf\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Currently:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"postList\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li id=\"8cbe\" class=\"graf graf--li graf-after--p\">35% of the EU\u2019s buildings are over 50 years old<\/li>\n<li id=\"5620\" class=\"graf graf--li graf-after--li\">75% of the building stock is energy inefficient<\/li>\n<li id=\"d9cb\" class=\"graf graf--li graf-after--li\">1% of the building stock is renovated each year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p id=\"3a28\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--li\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Therefore, the more we renovate existing buildings, the better potential we have to lead to significant energy savings and cut worldwide carbon emissions.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"7fb7\" class=\"graf graf--h3 graf-after--figure\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>How should the heating be managed in green buildings?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p id=\"d420\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">If you already don\u2019t have a programmable thermostat then you should get one. Cutting down the heating when the building is not used, counts as a biggest energy saving you could possibly get. With this, I can recommend many good models that can do that for you, automatically.<\/p>\n<p id=\"1812\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">But, what about the future?<\/p>\n<p id=\"9a1f\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Today we are already packing buildings with different sensors to measure and analyse the climate and the presence of the occupants. But this is taken merely from a one point of view from the end user, the people living in this one building.<\/p>\n<p id=\"726e\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">I believe that all the buildings are part of one large energy network and shouldn\u2019t be considered as a single entity. This network of concrete, steel and glass consume vigorously our energy without giving anything in return. Though they provide the rooftops as a convenient place for solar panels, this only helps renewable energy production. As we install more renewable energy sources, we also need to install more energy storage systems.<\/p>\n<p id=\"ee4b\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, every building\u00a0<em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">may<\/em>\u00a0have one more useful property\u200a\u2014\u200athat\u2019s thermal mass.<\/p>\n<p id=\"21a0\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">Thermal mass can work for or against you.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p id=\"1360\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Thermal mass is the ability of a material to absorb and store heat energy. A lot of heat energy is required to change the temperature of high-density materials like concrete, bricks and tiles. When we cut the heating, these materials will start slowly releasing its heat energy back to the surrounding environment. Not used correctly, it can cause a lot of inconvenience for the occupants.<\/p>\n<p id=\"95c9\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, thermal mass acts a lot like a battery and from the renewable energy point of view, this is a good thing!<\/p>\n<p id=\"60ca\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">So far, the applications for effective use of thermal mass involves absorbing the heat from the solar rays or from the air. This is sometimes supplemented by the heating system to compensate too large temperature fluctuations.<\/p>\n<p id=\"8d0f\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the future, we see that you can effectively store cheap and surplus renewable energy within the thermal mass using for example underfloor heating systems. But to do so we must understand the rhythm.<\/p>\n<p id=\"181d\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is almost like buildings are breathing. They breath in (heat the floors) whenever cheap electricity is available and breath out when heat is needed. However, similarly with the process of the respiration, with every breath more heat is tied within the concrete slab, allowing to provide heat later over longer period of time. Heat in, heat out.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"7e44\" class=\"graf graf--h3 graf-after--figure\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>How artificial intelligence can\u00a0help?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p id=\"7bf9\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">To fully understand this rhythm, we need to understand all the different variables that affect the material thermal mass, the effectiveness of it and the environment together with the occupational habits. The number of variables rise quickly when more precise prediction models are needed to be made.<\/p>\n<p id=\"1d29\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Using deep neural networks, we can bring the precision of our prediction very close to the point we can truly make informed decisions when to turn the heating on or off.<\/p>\n<p id=\"d13f\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is what we are trying to achieve in my company with our Themo smart thermostats.<\/p>\n<p id=\"6863\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p graf--trailing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">I believe that our current buildings can be turned into nearly zero energy buildings with more affordable solutions than one might think. Just some careful planning and clever design of thermal mass is required.<\/p>\n<p>(Source:<a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@madis.uuemaa\/an-important-property-often-missed-in-green-buildings-b0dd3227abd2\"> Madis Uuemaa article about the future of the buildings<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following is the article about the future of the buildings by Madis Uuemaa, who participated in the first greentech conference in Estonia organized by Science Park Tehnopol \u2013 GreenEST Summit 2018. It was a pleasure to participate last month in the\u00a0GreenEST Summit. Big thanks to\u00a0Tehnopol\u00a0for inviting\u00a0Themo\u00a0as one of the innovative start-ups showcase. Participating in such [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":57157,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57151"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57233,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57151\/revisions\/57233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tehnopol.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}