Chair of Industrial Sustainability - Intelligent Installation Techniques

Intelligent Installation Techniques in Building

The Chair for Industrial Sustainability has contributed to the work on the award conditions of the German environmental label which is called the "Blue Angel". It has been determined, if the label could be granted to bus controlled devices of installation techniques in buildings. The bus system is a monitoring device, which measures, controls and observes all functions of a building. These functions may be the control of heating, air conditioning, jalousie or fire and smoke alarms. Conventional techniques mostly uses all these functions in a separate monitoring system, but many wire systems and cables are needed. However, this is very costly, and raises the risk of fires. The European Installation bus safes cable, materials and energy. A Master Thesis from our Chair has found, that vast amounts of copper, PVC and other plastics can be saved if the Installation Bus System is introduced to office buildings.


The environmental label of the Germany Federal Environment Ministry for Stimulation of new Environmental Friendly Products The example of the European Installation Bus EIB
The European Installation Bus EIB Techniques Environmental Advantages of the EIB The Environmental Label for the EIB Contribution of the Chair of Industrial Sustainability Links and Literature

The European Installation Bus EIB

History
When the use of electricity began, the installation technique was relatively simple. There were only few electric consumers, like lamps, which were controlled only by a simple switch. With this century, a huge number of new possibilities for the use of electric energy have been developed and introduced. The motives for these developments were more comfort and rationalization. The simple on- and off-switch was soon insufficient for users which had higher demands. A variety of sensors to grasp the operating status and to switch devices when needed, had been introduced. So more and more complex switches and control operations were necessary. The outcome of this development was the increase in electric supply networks. These were mostly separate "island solutions", the cable system was for only one device. Examples for the island solutions are the following¹:

Control of Lightning Heating Aeration Climate Jalousie			Burglary and monitoring installation Fire and smoke alarm Visualizing building data Extern data transfer
*Table 1. Examples for conventional separated control systems for building techniques*
With all the different systems, it was extremely important to plan the electric installations very carefully. Later changes always meant a considerable effort. The number of cables rose, so did cable channels which soon reached their limits. So this meant, with the huge number of cables used, that this would also raise the fire risk level. Changes in structure and use of the electric systems were very costly. The solution was to combine the single island solutions. The data ways should be used repeatedly and ways to separate the data with the electric currents were researched. The aim was to simplify installation planning, to diminish the number of cables and to have a more flexible and powerful electric installation. The cost should be reduced without reducing the comfort of the installation. The first solutions to this problem were mostly central controlled systems for installation automation. The problem with that was the incompatibility of the different systems with each other. The user was fixed to one manufacturer. Also, the central structure of the installation was a disadvantage. A new solution was found by the Siemens AG with a couple of other electronics manufacturers in 1987. The objective was to create a system, that was able to measure, control, regulate and survey all functions of a building². The concept of this system convinced many electronics manufacturers so that the European Installation Bus Association³ EIBA was founded on May 8, 1990. The co-operation created a standardized⁴bus system, with the already mentioned demands. Since 1993, more than 100 European firms produce standard fitting EIB products. The EIBA, surveys the compatibility and quality demands and awards the EIB label for products.

Techniques
The EIB's technical basic idea is the strict separation between information and electrical currents transfer for the consumer. Another characteristics is the decentralization structure of the information transfer. All devices of the bus, which means all sensors and actors, can communicate with each other without a switchboard. The communication between the devices is controlled by events. That means, that only with the event, for example; when switching on a device, information is sent through the bus wires. If two devices from the bus are switched on at the same time, the device with the higher priority can send its data first. Like this, the transfer resources of the bus system can be kept little, which gives the system more function safety. The data transfer is serial, with a transfer rate of 9.6 kBit/second.

*Table 2. Selection of different EIB-devices*

Environmental advantages of the European Installation Bus EIB

The EIB differs in different aspects from the conventional building installation. The most essential differences are: Signal transfer and electricity supply are separated. Signal and control operations use the same wires. Sensors can be easily used several times. Change and extension of installation can be done with little efforts. All EIB-devices are compatible with each other, also from different manufacturers. The visualization of different operating status is possible with little efforts. There are environmental advantages resulting from the systems characteristics in comparison to conventional electrical installation. The more components are connected to the EIB system, the more the advantageous the system is.

Characteristic feature on the Environmental Compatibility of the EIB

Environmental advantage			Explanation
Energy saving			Improvement of the control and adjustment for, e.g. heating, lightning or air conditioning, documentation for the operating status.
Material saving			30-60 % of the wires above the distribution on one floor are saved (less copper and PVC) , less cable room is needed, less cable for later changes are needed.
Diminishing fire risk			Less plastics reduces the fire risk, less HCl and little dioxin emission during a fire.
Design for Recycling			Products are offered from different manufacturers. The casing only consists from one plastic (no PVCs). Plastics are marked, casings can be dismantled without tools and contain no hazardous substances.
Repair and maintenance friendly			Recall of defect protocols, easy change of components through the modular system.
Possibility to reuse			The modular system makes it possible to reuse the components.
Long life device			EIBA standard: 1000 fit = around 10 years life duration.

Table 3. Environmental characteristics of the European Installation Bus EIB
The installation bus can be more effective to the environment if the devices connected to the bus are also environmentally compatible. This is a demand for the manufacturers.

*Table 4. Recyclable devices for the EIB (dismantling is possible without tools)*

The Environmental Label for the EIB
Environmentally compatible devices are often more expensive in the beginning of their sale than conventional techniques. It is therefore important to show the potential customer the measurable environmental advantages of a product. One possibility is the environmental labeling. Product systems have not been labeled before and the European Installation Bus was the first system to ask for the German label "Blue Angel".


Table 5. Can product systems be admitted to the German Environmental Label?

Award conditions have been worked out for the labeling of the EIB. It turned out, that the "Blue Angel" criteria could be valid for product systems, not only for single products.

Please see the poster "General award conditions of the German Environmental Label "Blue Angel"

Contribution of the Chair for Industrial Sustainability

The Chair for Industrial Sustainability contributed to different projects with the grant of the German Environmental Label for the EIB. A master thesis e.g., did a study on the material consumption for the use of the EIB compared to conventional installation systems. The results from this thesis are presented below in the table.


*Table 6. Results from a master thesis from our Chair:* *Presentation of the amount of saved materials, due to the use of the EIB. Presented with different consumers (lighting, air conditioning and jalousie control).*

The Chair has also been contributing to the work on award conditions for the installation bus systems (RAL-UZ 94, this is the number of the label)⁵.A number of suggestions could be introduced to the award conditions. Since 1999 the label is valid for bus controlled systems. Manufacturers, which fulfill the conditions of the label, can use it for their products.

Links and Literature

Links German Federal Environment Ministry: http://www.blauer-engel.de/Englisch/index.htm EIBA: http://idaho.eiba.com/home.nsf EIB dictionary: http://www.tirol.wifi.at/eib/ (in German) Link collection EIB: http://www.e-scherl.at/e.scherl/links.htm (in German) Quoted Literature / 1 / Voigt, Dieter, Gebäudesystemtechnik mit Installationsbus, Zeitschrift: TAB, Nr. 2 /93, S. 121 ff., (in German) / 2 / European Installation Bus Association, EIB - Die Geschichte des Erfolgs, EIB-Journal, April 95, S. 1 ff., (in German) / 3 / http://www.eiba.de/; http://www.eiba.be/, (in German) / 4 / VDE 829, TC 105, CENELEC, (in German) / 5 / http://www.blauer-engel.de/Produkte/index.htm (in German) Recommended Literature Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektroindustrie e.V., Handbuch der Gebäudesystemtechnik, Frankfurt/Main, 1994.(in German)


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