Energy and life cycle planning tool
Advantages for planning and maintenance!
The unique energy and life cycle planning tool innovated by Sweco will speed up the calculation of energy systems and energy consumption in a way never seen before. It allows the reviewing of units comprising several buildings, e.g. city blocks or districts, as early on as during their concept or zoning stages, giving energy flow calculations for factors such as energy and life cycle costs and the carbon dioxide emissions of the site’s energy consumption.
The production devices of heating, electricity and cooling can be modelled as part of the buildings’ energy calculations. The production devices’ connections to different distribution systems can also be modelled accurately. The tool also offers advantages for modification needs during the maintenance phase.
Unified, validated and accurate calculation method guarantees high-quality end result
The tool’s calculations related to energy systems will be made at an accuracy level of one hour, applying confirmed and widely approved calculation rules. The calculations for each project are made with the same rules, and the results are presented in the same default format. This provides you with reliable, comparable and high-quality data.
Comparisons for the entirety of energy use
All energy calculations of an individual project or a whole area will be brought together in one tool, which makes it easy to update as planning and implementation stages move forward, all the way from project planning to commissioning and maintenance phases. The tool easily reveals the overall situation regarding the use of renewable energy, energy recycling, self-sufficient energy and similar, as well as their proportion to purchased energy.
The tool benefits engineers, experts and customers alike. The customers will quickly and easily receive reference calculations and alternatives to support their decision-making process and development work. In the end, the major advantages can be seen in the optimisation and recycling of energy use in the reviewed sites.
Time savings and efficiency
“Whereas we used to spend days or even weeks performing calculations and reviewing different options, now we can get the results in a blink of an eye, even during a customer meeting, for example. The tool has now been used in dozens of different projects, and the feedback we have received from customers has warmed the cockles of the developers’ and innovators’ hearts,” says one of the tool’s two developers, Joni Hilpinen, development manager of Sweco’s Sustainable and Smart Construction.
“This tool allowed us to unify and replace several separate tools and speed up the different work stages of energy system and energy consumption calculations. The tool enables more comprehensive reference calculations and area-specific energy production reviews than before,” Hilpinen says.
The tool is constantly being developed further, and it will soon be possible to carry out calculations of buildings’ energy use by utilising artificial intelligence, either based on Sweco’s ready building type data or the customer’s own data. In addition to calculations and system comparisons, the idea is also to get complete plans and measurement data from the modelled energy systems.
Contact Us
Riku Maidell
Business Director, Sustainable Development ServicesJoni Hilpinen
Sustainable and smart construction development managerJuha Rinta-Rahko
Energy Professional