Issue 3/2010


05/02/10

ELA 2010 Seminar in Berlin

The European Lift Association held their 2010 conference at the Palace Hotel, in the centre of what was formally West Berlin. The topic was on “How to improve the energy efficiency of lifts, escalators and moving walks”. Over 100 delegates registered for the seminars and they along with invited guests from the EU Commission, National lift Associations , Notified Bodies and the Press enjoyed a number of informative and stimulating presentations. The presentations at the seminar explored energy saving from the point of view of the lift industry, architecture and the client . Credit should be given to the ELA for ensuring this ‘all inclusive’ selection of papers was part of the conference programme.
Category: Issue 3/2010
Posted by: Editor

To start Michel Chartron (president of the ELA), welcomed everyone to the conference and introduced the main topic-“Energy Efficiency”. Pointedly, Chartron highlighted one of the current key statements that is being quoted amongst the European energy community. This states ‘the best kWh produced is the one you don’t consume and consequently don’t have to generate’. Resulting in part, from this truism and common sense saying, the European Commission and all the member states have devised a two-pronged policy;

  • Saving energy through better insulation along with the application of new technologies and methods.
  • Developing new Cleaner Sources of energy
Michel then explained how this approach concerns the lift, escalator and moving walk industry. He stated that the two main European directives that could affect us are;
  • 1. EPBD, the European Performance of Buildings directive (2002/91/EC)
  • 2. ErP, the Energy-related Products directive (2009/ 125/EC)
“Out of these two we (ELA) clearly prefer the approach of the EPBD as lifts and escalators are clearly part of buildings and the built environment”.
Lifts and Escalators actually represent only between 3 % and 8 % of the energy consumption of buildings, whether main public buildings or residential dwellings.
An in-depth study, including precise measurements was done in Switzerland in 2006. The results were striking and showed that the lift ‘standby’ function accounted for half of the total electricity consumed in most of the installations studied. So this clearly indicated that the industry could make efforts in this area and gain worthwhile efficiencies.
By the end of 2007 the ELA had the opportunity to participate in the Intelligent Energy Europe initiative and be sponsored by the Commission to make an in-depth study at European level. A consortium was created to pursue the initiative and included the ELA, an academic authority, the University of Coimbra (Portugal), the Energy agencies of Italy and Poland (ENEA and KAPE) and the German consultancy Fraunhofer. Importantly, ELA national members and their company have actively participated in measuring all types of lifts across Europe and been party to a broad survey about the energy profile of existing lift stocks in each country.
Chartron ended his introduction with the leading question: “So how can we save energy, which in our case is mainly – electricity?”
He then introduced two key speakers who could help answer the question – Professor Anibal de Almeida, who heads the E4 consortium and Urs Lindegger, who is Chairman of the Energy & Ecology Work Group in ELA.
Professor Anibal de Almeida, of the University of Coimbra took to the podium and enthusiastically presented the E4 Project to the delegates. He explained that 74 lifts and 7 escalators had been monitored in a variety of building types. These case study installations demonstrated all the lift technologies in use today ; hydraulic, traction, geared, gearless, etc.
During the presentation the whole research procedure was described and the results presented along with the potential reduction in the electrical consumption of lifts. The total electrical power used in operating lifts in Europe is estimated at around 18 TWh and reductions of 10 TWh have been identified, which are significant. For Escalators there was little opportunity to make significant gains but anything would help, with a potential reduction of 255 GWh being identified. However, the total electrical consumption of all the escalators in Europe is relatively low at 900 GWh per year, so a small percentage efficiency improvement would only produce a small net energy reduction.
Prof. Almeida identified two important questions at the end of his presentation.
First Q – What needs to be done?
Recommended strategies and measures.
- Standardized and transparent guidelines on how to measure energy consumption and calculate annual energy demand of an individual installation on a European level
  •  Concepts to draw on ISO 25 745, VD 14 707, SIA 380-4, E4 Project.
- Inclusion of lifts and escalators into EPBD
- Raising awareness and enhancing knowledge
Main target groups;
  •  New installations; stakeholders involved in the planning and construction process of buildings.
  •  Existing installations, owners, users and operators.
Measures;
  •  Labelling of equipment
  •  Access to objective information
  •  Awareness campaigns for target groups.
Second Q – How to implement energy effi ciency ? – Guidelines
- Lifts and escalators are individually engineered systems rather than off-the-shelf products or standardized products
  •  general guidelines are difficult to develop
- Energy efficiency concerns the whole life cycle of an installation, including
  •  creating awareness and knowledge within the industry and beyond
  •  selecting appropriate equipment
  •  using this equipment in an energy efficient manner
  •  ensuring sensitivity to energy efficiency matters for installation and maintenance.
Complete information and detailed reports from each of the projects’ work packages can be found on; www.e4project.eu
The next presentation was given by Urs Lindegger, chairman of the ELA Energy & Ecology Work Group and was titled ‘Lift energy consumption – a way forward’.
Lindegger concentrated on looking at the practicalities and guided the audience through the technical elements that are so important to this topic. Urs focused on a good modern residential lift which he stated needs about 50W for the standby demand which is made up of the following elements; the elevator controller, the floor indicators, 7 landing call buttons, the car control panel, the light curtain, and the frequency converter.
Lindegger expanded on some of the good practice elements ‘the to do‘s’ that would help energy saving in the Lift systems. The key areas he suggested were turning off the liftcar lights when not in use and de-energizing the door motors when the lift is standing idle at a floor.
Urs restated that; “For the future there are challenges to reduce the standby energy demand”
  • Use car lights with high switching cycles, so they can be turned off during the trips. Regular incandescent and florescent lamps would break quickly and produce a negative environmental impact.
Technologies;
  • LED Lights
  • Fluorescent lamps with high heavy duty switching capabilities
  • Use lift controllers with sleep mode.
Challenges;
  • Fast time to go from sleeping to operational mode (-5 seconds). Relays in old controllers had no boot-up time!
  • Don’t lose important information such as car and door position.
To end the section on lift systems Urs focused on the future use of technologies employed in other industries with telecommunications as a prime example. Also he flagged Travel Energy Optimization as an area for investigation where the design configuration and passenger use of the lift system is so important to any energy gain.
Luc Rivet then introduced a video message from Mrs Pirjo-Liisa Koskimaki, head of the Energy Efficiency unit, European Commission DG Energy. This was presented on behalf of the Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger. (Presentation text provided)
    
This ended the technical side of the seminar so Rivet invited all to take a coffee break and return for the two presentations that would look at the conference topic from the Architectural and Client perspective.
Prof. Holger Hagge the Global Head of Building & Workplace Development Deutsche Bank was first up after the coffee break and he introduced the topic of energy use from the client’s perspective to the audience. He focused on the redevelopment of the Twin towers commonly known as “Credit and Debit” in Frankfurt. As many will know this is the Headquarters of Deutsche Bank which has now proclaimed these buildings as “Greentowers” and the development team is confident that the towers will be the first renovated skyscrapers with an LEED Platinum certification.
Hagge titled his presentation; Greentowers – Setting New Standards.
He explained that the towers were first occupied in 1984. This current redevelopment was started in 2007 and is now nearing completion in 2010. The towers are being transformed into a visible symbol that stands for efficient use of resources and simultaneously, a high quality working environment. The project is creating one of the most environmentally friendly skyscrapers in the world and will be a model for an ecologically sustainable office building.
The Greentowers project innovates sustainability and will verifiably set new standards for future projects leading to sustainable improvements; in terms of this project a number of key objectives were set and achieved;
  • Resources reduced by 98 %
  • Heating energy reduced by 67 %
  • Electrical power reduced by 55 %
  • Water reduced by 74 %
  • CO2 reduced by 89 % (with reference to the Primary Energy/
  • 55 % through reduced consumption/
  • 34 % through greener power) Utilization ratio increased by 20 %
In terms of the elevator technology a new traffic management system is being used to increase the handling capacity and reduce waiting times. Also, depending on direction and load, the system will generate electricity which will be fed back into the power grid. This technology and the optimized system design will reduce power consumption of the elevators in the towers by 50 %.
In the closing section of his presentation Prof Hagge stressed the commitment of the Deutsche Bank to “Banking on Green”. This would be achieved through innovative and pioneering measures that would implement an ecological, sustainable, state-of-the-art working environment. The result of the redevelopment of the towers would provide a better working environment and save electricity, some 19.8 GWh/a.
Prof. Hagge invited anyone wanting more information to visit www.greentowers.de.
Architecture and Design is crucial to the debate on energy consumption and everyone was interested to hear what Steven Beckers of the Art and Build architectural practice would have to say and show. His presentation was titled “A Global Approach to Sustainability in Architecture” and Beckers illustrated sustainable design with a number of high profile projects that the Art & Build Practice had been involved with. In all of them energy consumption and sustainability had been of great importance but two of the most high profile projects were for the European Commission and the Council of Europe . The Berlaymont in Brussels was a complete redevelopment project carried out in 2005 and the Agora building in Strasbourg was a new build and opened in 2008 to much acclaim. In these buildings function, materials and style had all come together to make a living piece of architecture that also took account of the local micro-climates. Beckers did not dwell long on lift systems as everyone had covered that speciality so well but he did give an enlightening overview of the sustainable design initiative. This, in essence, is a total design philosophy which considers the totality of the building, the life expectancy, the materials used, the sustainability, the function and performance. Beckers explained that a number of architectural practices are now grouping to embrace sustainable design. However, much more needs to be done to spread the word.
Beckers used the Covent Garden project in Brussels to illustrate the Biological waste water treatment in the atrium of this city centre project where waste water is filtered, cleaned and recycled by the organic features in the atrium and how the glass cladding and shutters breathe fresh air into the building. This, working with natural cycles and micro-climates certainly gave the audience much to think about, especially when you consider creating sustainable environments, developing new living spaces and “moving people through architectural space”.
To end the seminar sessions Christophe Coudun, project officer – Energy-Efficient Products – Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI) gave a few closing words and praised the organizers for the event which was valued as part of the EU Sustainable Energy Week. Christophe covered a number of points including the funding areas for 2010. These were categorised as Energy Efficiency (SAVE), Energy-efficient transport (STEER), Renewable energy sources (ALTENER) and Integrated initiatives.
All the presenters then took to the platform again to answer questions from the conference floor. The questions were mainly concerned with the commercial implications and what incentives could be introduced to help drive the initiative forward. Also, with information coming from so many different sources and often contradictory, how and who would validate the information was a concern. The panel agreed that education was very important along with reliable information and that if this could be achieved it would drive client and public knowledge and debate. Questions regarding the payback time on the capital invested were not easy to evaluate or answer. Prof Hagge explained that he had deliberately not shown figures regarding this aspect of the Greentowers project, as it is difficult to evaluate and show the real payback. However, he would expect, by most accepted criteria, for it to be within a few years rather than decades. If this proves to be right then the results of the Greentowers project will certainly help drive the initiative.
Luc Rivet closed the Conference which certainly had raised the awareness of all including the panellists. I for one certainly left the congress with an air of hope that the sustainable design initiatives would amount to a real change in the way we live. In the future we will all have to question just what services we expect to support our life style. However, I found it difficult and daunting to see how all this effort would achieve the desired results unless a major change in society and individual attitudes were made.
In the coffee bar after the congress I pondered one of the main congress messages – “to turn off liftcar lights”. This sounds like a good idea, but how would that affect panoramic lifts where the lights are one of the main attractions? Colourful illuminated panoramic lift installations in shopping malls, hotel atriums or wall climbing up a skyscraper are one of the great design features found in modern buildings, and users and operators love them. Then, from the safety aspect, one of the main reasons for bright light in lift interiors is for passenger security. The use of high illumination and a mirrored back wall is to counter the threat from attacks on passengers entering parked lifts. This design feature helps passengers see if a “mugger” is hiding behind the lift doors. If we are all going to use darker public spaces and environments where lights are turning on and off, that is an enormous change. It is clear that if a move towards sustainable design is to be achieved, then a fully integrated policy that covers all design disciplines, political activities and industrial processes will have to be instigated and unanimously approved. ‘Here’s to the brave new world’ and I for one wish it well but as I get older I definitely need more light.
Anyone wanting more information on this topic can contact the ELA at www. ela-aisbl.org
John Gale 2010 – Creative Spark Design Partnership
3/2010

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