Increasing energy efficiency in buildings through building automation measures — Role of demonstration

Energy efficiency in buildings contributes significantly to overall energy efficiency targets of the European Community. Buildings consume around 40% of overall primary energy in Europe and are responsible for about 36% of EU CO₂ emissions. Although building automation may help a lot in this efficiency improvement it has not been exploited sufficiently in current EU practice. The possible reason could be additional and yet relatively less known level of specificity required for massive deployment of automation technology. This article is going to analyse briefly existing situation and policy instruments and propose certain measures to support use of building automation. These measures concern demonstration of effects of adding measurement, control and management functions to performance of technical systems of buildings.