Frankfurt-am-Main has been exemplary in long standing energy management activities for municipal buildings. They are exemplary in their metering and monitoring of energy use throughout their building portfolio.
Automatic meter reading has been installed at 330 buildings, involving the installation of over 1000 data loggers for heat, electricity and water. Energy use profiles are stored by the data loggers and downloaded centrally once per day. This allows tight monitoring of energy use, the checking of settings (e.g. switch off during night / weekends) and the detection of losses. Figure 1 shows an example of the previous day’s energy use for one of the buildings.
Figure 1: Screenshot showing kWh per hour, up to the previous day, for a selected building (Buergeramt) (Stadt Frankfurt-am-Main, 2014).
Historical data is also available alongside previous years’ energy use – see Figure 2.
Figure 2: Historical energy use shown for selected building (Verkehrsamt) updated to 3 months previously
Display Energy Certificates, guidance for facilities managers, staff training is also publicly available.
Another section shows performance of energy saving measures that are being implemented or trialled (Stadt Frankfurt-am-Main, 2014). It is even possible to download bonuses paid (to buildings energy managers) for energy cost savings since 1998.
Forty one buildings have received thermal imaging reports which enables identification of where heat is being lost in a building. Some sample images of The Romer Rathaus (town hall) are shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Part of the Romer Rathaus thermal imaging report, 2008 (Stadt Frankfurt am Main, 2014)
As a result of the many activities, energy use – heating in particular has reduced by over a third – see Figure 4.
Figure 4: Energy use shown 2009 – 2013 (Stadt Frankfurt-am-Main, 2014)