Building Energy Monitoring Systems

School Energy Monitoring Project – Passive Building Standard

The AMOS primary school on the outskirts of Prague was the first public building in the Czech Republic to be built to the Passive House standard.

The Passive House standard, promoted by the Passive House Institute and International Passive House Association, is a performance-based building standard that aims to dramatically reduce heating and cooling needs through a focus on a tight building envelope, high-performance windows, and efficient ventilation with heat recovery.
Adopting approaches from the standard can help server rooms and data centres to achieve energy consumption monitoring, reductions and contribute towards their sustainability goals.

The AMOS school was opened to pupils in 2019, with the whole project taking over a decade to complete from start to finish. The school uses two independent heat sources:

• Heat pumps (air-water)
• A Gas boiler

The Passive Standard for buildings obliges its operators to record energy consumption and monitor reports. To comply, a Perseus Energy 285 was installed in the large equipment room in the basement of the building, and every meter: water, electricity, gas, was connected to and monitored by the Perseus 285. Each heat pump is also monitored by the Perseus Energy device. A calorimeter on the heat collector monitors how much heat has been delivered to the whole system.

Electricity Meters

Electricity meters are connected to a Perseus Energy 285 unit and separately monitor the energy consumption in the school kitchen, which is the most energy-intensive part of the building, and separate it from the whole building, which is also metered.

This monitoring configuration was chosen because the school must operate within specific regulations. The heat pumps initially heat the water to 42-45°C, which is not hot enough for the kitchen and hot water tanks. The air-to-water heat pumps lose efficiency below -5°C, with diminishing returns start somewhere around 2-3°C. This means that the water has to be heated to the higher temperature using natural gas.

The school also has 2 pre-heating tanks that are heated only by the heat pumps, and then, depending on the outside temperature conditions and current consumption, the gas boiler is switched on for 2 separate heating tanks. One is used exclusively for the school kitchen and the other is used to heat the common areas of the building. At the same time, electric reed heaters have been installed to increase the efficiency of everything that is further away from the boilers and with more than 50 metres of piping.

Water Meters

Water consumption is similarly monitored and controlled. The school is equipped with a rainwater toilet flushing system. Water is collected in an underground tank under the outdoor playground and pumped to an intermediate tank in the boiler room. The Perseus Energy 285 continuously monitors water consumption and in the event of a water shortage in the underground tank, activates replenishment of the intermediate tank from the water supply line. At the same time, it detects tank overflow using a WLD water detection leakage cable in case of a fault in one of the water ball valves.

The entire combination of meters and sensors is then connected to the Sensdesk portal. Smart alerts (available via email or SMS text) for water, gas and heat are managed through the portal, as well as automated reports monitoring the current status of all meters.

For more information on our energy monitoring platforms please contact our projects team.