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## Tour
### Beschreibung
tour.description = Virtual tour through the research and innovation building NEST of Empa and Eawag
### Titel
tour.name = Virtual NEST Tour
## Skin
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HTMLText_2F3CF651_3B29_5E19_41AE_24E12D9F9A16.html = Questions and feedback
Do you have specific questions or would you like to give us feedback on the virtual NEST tour? Then get in touch with us.
Further information
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viboo – intelligent buildings
The Empa spin-off viboo develops data-driven predictive control algorithms for building energy systems. With measurement data of only one week and physics-informed Machine Learning a thermal model of the building is learnt. By incorporating weather forecasts, the energy consumption and user comfort can be optimized predictively. The algorithms have been validated in the NEST demonstrator: 30% energy savings, 70% better comfort. Besides already mentioned advantages, the control solution is extremely flexible and scalable. By that, it is ready for future topics as variable energy pricing, demand response, or coordinated building control. Companies (e.g. manufacturer of smart thermostats, building automation companies, etc.) can offer these algorithms to their customers by integrating them into their product portfolio via an intuitive API.
Energy Hub: Innovative Energy Research
Low-temperature network 8/14 degrees Celsius
At NEST, energy is distributed between the individual units in two ways: electrically or in the form of heat. The low-temperature network is used for cooling in summer. Extracted heat from the units is supplied to the storage tanks by heat pumps. The extracted heat can be stored in seasonal heat reservoirs (ice storage, geothermal probes) for cold seasons.
Storage battery
The storage battery of the NEST with 96kWh storage capacity is comparable to the battery of a Tesla Model S or two Renault Zoe. In normal operation, the battery stores solar power. In experiments, it is also used to simulate electrical loads, in which case it draws energy from the building. Likewise, on cloudy days, it can simulate the input of solar power into the building's grid.
Heat meter
The heat meters are used to compare the energy consumption of the individual units in the NEST. Each unit has six of these meters - the hot and cold parts of each of the three heating networks. The temperature and water volume are measured. Each meter has its own IP address and reports its values to the NEST Data Pool.
High-temperature network 60/40 degrees Celsius
At NEST, energy is distributed between the individual NEST units in two ways: electrically or in the form of heat. From the high-temperature network, each unit draws the amount of energy it needs. The high-temperature network is used, for example, to heat the shower water. A unit can also feed excess heat back into the network so that it can be used for other units.
The control center of the ehub
All systems are operated and coordinated from here. Individual facilities can be made available to teams around the world for research and development purposes. In this case, parts of the NEST can be controlled remotely - from Texas, Nairobi, Trondheim or Moscow. In this way, the ehub serves energy research all around the world.
Project: Smart charging of bi-directional electric vehicles
Electric vehicles (EVs) with bi-directional charging offer potential for both charging and discharging energy from their battery. If performed in a proper way, smart charging of these type of EVs can bring benefits for the building energy consumption. For example, the EV could be charged at work by photovoltaic energy. After the vehicle returned home from work, the energy from the EV battery could be used for cooking or supporting the heating system. In this project, the ehub team develops controllers based on artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize the connection between the EV charging and the room temperature control.
An important contribution to the energy transition
By signing the Paris Climate Agreement, Switzerland has committed itself to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With the Energy Strategy 2050, Switzerland wants to achieve this goal. The focal areas of this strategy are:
• the nuclear phase-out
• increasing energy efficiency
• the promotion of renewable energies
This ambitious goal can only be achieved through fundamental changes in the energy ecosystem. With NEST, ehub and move Empa offers three demonstration platforms that enable the evaluation of innovative technologies in a real-world environment and thus contributes to the energy transition.
Energy flexibility in buildings
Energy flexibility refers to the potential of changing energy usage from their conventional patterns to those that can contribute to a sustainable energy system. For example, we can shift our energy consumption to periods when energy costs are low or when the consumed energy's carbon footprint is low. Energy flexibility can also be used to support the integration of photovoltaics (PV) by consuming more energy when the PV-systems produce more. Therefore, the Empa researchers are exploring methods to increase the energy flexibility in buildings while also improve the inhabitants' comfort and maintain a stable energy system.
Medium-temperature network 35/25 degrees Celsius
In the NEST, energy is distributed between the individual units in two ways: electrically or in the form of heat. Each unit draws the amount of energy it needs from the medium-temperature network. The units are heated using the 35-degree water by ceiling or floor heating systems.
Gaining heat from ice
How can heat be extracted from ice? It sounds counterintuitive, but there is a lot of energy stored in ice. Heating water from 20°C to 80°C requires the same amount of energy as freezing liquid water from 0°C. To take advantage of this fact, the ehub infrastructure includes an ice storage tank. This underground cistern contains water and pipe spirals through which a frost-proof liquid circulates. With the help of a heat pump, energy is extracted from the water, which can be used for heating or for heating water. As a result, the water gradually freezes. The frozen water can also be used for cooling in the summer. A project team at Empa is working on mathematical modeling of ice storages to simulate the seasonal storage effects and make them more applicable for planners.
Supercapacitors
Supercapacitors can withstand very high charge/discharge power without aging. They supplement the batteries by absorbing power peaks, thus extending the life of the batteries.
Sector coupling
People interact with different energy carriers on a daily basis. For example electricity for electronic devices, heat for comfortable room temperatures or (synthetic) fuels to power their vehicles. These energy streams seem distinct and independent. An efficient energy system, however, integrates all of them. Coupled energy streams, heat pumps or power-to-gas systems lead to a more resilient energy system. This also calls for coupled eco-systems and regulatory frameworks. At NEST, the ehub team investigates the interaction between multiple thermal, electrical and gas based energy carriers on district level.
Project: Occupant-centered data-driven control
Since we are spending more than 80% of our time indoors, occupant comfort is becoming more and more an important aspect. In conventional building thermostats, the temperature set point settings are defined and the user only changes them when they start to feel uncomfortable. In this project, the following questions should be answered: Is the heating controller be able to learn from installed sensors and past changes of the temperature settings what temperature levels users like at what time? Did outside weather conditions have an impact on those changes? To answer those questions, the ehub researchers are developing controllers based on methods from artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide individually tailored comfort conditions to occupants, while respecting their privacy and still allowing them to react to the settings suggested by the AI controller.
Project: Autotuning controller for a heat pump system
Standard industrial controllers are tuned to provide an optimal operation of a system at the time of commissioning. However, over the lifetime of a building, due to aging or changing of some of its components, the process conditions change leading to sub-optimal performance of the system. This requires the re-tuning of the controller, which is an expensive task and requires highly skilled persons. A solution to this is a controller that can automatically re-tune itself continuously in time to regain the desired performance. In this project, the ehub team developed a method that uses past process data to update the controller parameters during the normal operation of the system.
Efficient communication among components
The research and innovation infrastructure (NEST, move, ehub, dhub)
of Empa in Dübendorf allows energy research in a busy neighborhood. In order to connect the building sector with the mobility sector - and thus also all the components that produce, store, transport and convert energy - the OPC-UA communication protocol is used.
Industry perspective on energy research
Applied research in energy and control can only benefit society when results are transferred to industry. In joint projects, current and future challenges are identified. These are then tackled by scientific approaches, simulations, and real-life demonstrations here on the Empa demonstrators. The ehub team offers industry partners their expertise in control and energy management to further develop their products. At the same time, it promotes cooperation with research partners, which can provide valuable inputs for the industry.
ehub – the central energy hub
Platform for collecting data and controlling
Connect. Collect. Control.
ehub not only allows the analysis of the collected data but also the active override of the systems with individual control algorithms. This enables the partners to implement new operating concepts and validate them in reality. ehub, therefore, consists of a large number of components and technologies that all communicate with each other via a standardized communication protocoll. All components are located in real-world environments and are constantly in operation.
More than 8,000 data points provide real-time information on individual components, subsystems and entire units. These are stored in the ehub database every minute and are available for analysis.
Low-temperature heat pump
A glycol circuit transports heat from the geothermal probes and ice storage to the heat pump. The extracted heat flows into the medium-temperature network (35 degrees Celsius).
Project: Improving the sustainability of buildings by considering the electricity carbon footprint
Energy usage of buildings accounts for a significant share of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is crucial to adapt our energy usage habits to reduce the carbon footprint. Results from a recent project indicate that there is high variability in the hourly electricity carbon footprint (an example is shown in the figure). Researchers at Empa are working on incorporating such high-resolution electricity carbon footprint into building energy management systems, which automatically adapts energy usage patterns considering forecast of energy needs and shifts energy consumption to low-carbon periods.
Troubleshooting using augmented reality
ReMaP - Foundations for the energy system of tomorrow
On the way to a sustainable energy system, technologies for flexible conversion and efficient storage of energy are becoming more important. In order to investigate these issues in a realistic way, the ehub team, together with ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute, has been developing ReMaP, a novel research platform, launched in 2019. The platform connects the various research infrastructures so that they can be used to validate and further develop new technologies and concepts. See the first live demonstration of the platform in the video (in German).
Electrical reserves with heat pumps
With more and more renewable energy sources connected to the electricity grid, keeping it stable becomes challenging. Besides energy storage and supporting supply with fast-reacting power plants, demand side management can help in this challenge. The ehub team uses heat pumps with a control algorithm based on a combination of machine learning and robust model predictive control to offer electrical reserves to the grid with a heat pump. The researchers exploit the thermal flexibility of water storage and the building itself to consume electricity in a way that is helpful for grid stability while ensuring that the buildings' indoor conditions are comfortable.
High-temperature heat pump
Cooled return water from the high-temperature circuit (40 degrees Celsius) is reheated to 60 degrees. The required heat comes from the medium-temperature network (35 degrees Celsius).
High-temperature fuel cell
It generates electrical energy from natural gas and heat at the same time. The fuel cell can also use artificially produced natural gas (syngas) from the mobility demonstrator move. It is produced from solar and wind power and is CO₂-neutral.
Energy Hub: Energy research at district level
Our energy system is changing rapidly: The expansion of renewable energy leads to a decentralized and fluctuating supply, because the sun and wind do not let us generate energy whenever and wherever we need it. Efficient storage systems and an intelligent, dynamic interaction of various technologies are required – not only in individual buildings, but also in districts and entire cities. ehub – short for Energy Hub – is Empa's energy research platform. Its goal is to enable research and business partners to optimize energy management in individual buildings and at the district level, thereby advancing the energy transition.
ehub comprises the two Empa demonstration platforms NEST and move and connects all on-site technologies that generate, transport, store and convert energy. Depending on the research question at hand, each component can be con-trolled individually or in combination with others – via numerous interfaces. At the same time, several thousand measurement points continuously gather data that are available both live and for subsequent analysis.
Opening: May 2016
Partners: Adaptricity, aliunid, Aurora's Grid, Beckhoff, Belimo, die werke versorgung wallisellen ag, Energie 360°, energie-cluster.ch, Fleco Power, Georg Fischer AG, Glattwerk AG, R. Nussbaum AG, Swisspower, Viessmann, Verband Schweizerischer Elektrizitätsunternehmen VSE, XORELLA-FRANK AG, Berner Fachhochschule BFH, CSEM, EPFL, ETH Zürich, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz FHNW, HES-SO, Hochschule Luzern HSLU, Paul Scherrer Institut PSI, SCCER FEEB&D, Bundesamt für Energie, CCEM, EnergieSchweiz, ETH-Rat, Innosuisse, Kanton Zürich, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds, SVGW
Hoch- & Tiefgestellte Zeichen
Hochgestellt:
⁰ ¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁸ ⁹
⁺ ⁻ ⁼ ⁽ ⁾ ⁱ ⁿ
Tiefgestellt:
CO₂,
₀₁₂₃₄₅₆₇₈₉
₊ ₋ ₌ ₍ ₎
ₐ ₑ ₒ ₓ ₔ ₕ ₖ ₗ ₘ ₙ ₚ ₛ ₜ
Liste unter: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicodeblock_Hoch-_und_tiefgestellte_Zeichen
The storage tanks of the NEST building
From top to bottom:
• Storage tank for the high-temperature circuit (60 degrees Celsius)
• Storage tank for the medium-temperature circuit (35 degrees Celsius)
• Storage tank for the low-temperature circuit (8 degrees Celsius)
All the corresponding pipes can be found on the ceiling.