WattElse has been selected by the Economic Office of the Province of Namur (BEP) to carry out quickscans of municipal buildings of the Province of Namur.
The role of the BEP
As a territorial coordinator, the BEP provided methodological and financial support to the communes to develop supra-local Energy Climate Plans in the 3 districts of the Province of Namur. These different Climate Energy Plans have set ambitious targets in the fight against global warming for all actors in the territories, one of which are the municipal actors.
In order to support towns in achieving these objectives, the BEP is piloting the realisation of quickscans within municipal buildings. This will lead to a first inventory of buildings and a selection of measures to prioritize in order to optimise the energy performance of these buildings. The results of this large study will enable the BEP to coordinate a joint renovation operation.
The goals of a quickscan
A quickscan is a technical and energy orientation study of a site location which can include one or more building(s). It is based on a half-day site visit by a WattElse expert with a representative in charge of the management of the municipal buildings.
The quickscan aims to:
- Give a first overview of the buildings state at the level of:
- The envelope (walls, roof, chassis);
- Systems (heating / domestic hot water, lighting, ventilation and renewable production);
- To give first proposals for improvement measures;
- Provide an action plan with technical and financial evaluation criteria with a first budget estimate.
The first results
As a result of the first visits we made, we noticed that most of visited buildings have a good envelope. Most of them were built in the 80s with a small layer of insulation in the walls and roofs. Therefore, the return times for improving the insulation of these buildings is greater than 20 years.
We also found that many boilers were still in use (mostly in schools) while the outside temperature was scorching. As such, we believe that automatic control solutions would be interesting to integrate into the joint renovation operation with potential savings of 15 to 30% for uncontrolled buildings.
Sharing of experience
Following these first visits, some key elements are essential to ensure the quality of visit reports :
- Importance of the thermal camera: we systematically perform our visits with a thermal camera that allows us to detect hot radiators or non-insulated pipes. Without the camera, important information can be missed (hot pipes in the floor, hot radiators in unoccupied rooms or outside the heating period, etc.).
- Importance of pictures: during each visit, we take a hundred pictures (lighting, premises, boiler room, kitchen, etc.) that allow us to identify and illustrate energy anomalies and improvement actions.
- Importance of the visit: going to see the premises and chatting with the users allows us to understand the systems and the behavior of the occupants. It also allows to detect anomalies, for example : a boiler operating in a school during school break, lights on during the day, etc. that we cannot detect without going on the spot.
Interested in the process ? Do not hesitate to contact our team at 082/226 229