international - Bergische Universität Wuppertal

54
improving energy effiCienCy
on ConstrUCtion sites
With around 705,000
employees and an investment
of some €212 billion
in 2009, Germany’s construction
industry plays a major
role in the nation’s economy.
Its carbon footprint and use
of resources are correspondingly
high. But choice of
building materials and energy
consumption are both closely
linked to costs. Paradoxically,
the care taken nowadays in
designing environmentally
sustainable, energy-efficient
buildings is not reflected in
the construction process itself,
which is often marked
by a casual attitude to energy
resources, ranging from
faulty logistics involving extra
journeys, through old, ener-
gy-inefficient machinery, to
construction site lighting that
is left on all night. Management
and employees seem
not to think of reducing fuel
consumption or emissions
(and their associated costs),
although environmentally appropriate
behavior could produce
enormous savings for
their companies.
UW’s Interdisciplinary Center
for Technical Process Management
is currently engaged
on a research project for
the German Environmental
Foundation to develop concepts
tailored to the construction
industry for the enhancement
of energy efficiency
on building sites. Titled “The
Development of Concepts for
the Enhancement of Energy
Efficiency and the Reduction
of Co Emissions on Cons-
2
truction Sites”, the project
aims to investigate the plant,
methods, and processes used
in the industry from the point
of view of energy consumption
and carbon footprint, and
to pinpoint organizational,
technical, and HR-centered
potentials for improvement
and optimization. When the
project is completed, construction
companies will be provided
with clear economic as
well as ecological incentives
to save natural resources and
reduce carbon emissions.
orGAniZAtionAL
eFFiCienCy
Good organization in both the
preparatory and construction
phase is the basis of efficient
site management. Shortcomings
tend to appear in
the realization rather than the
making of plans: for example,
machinery of the right sort is
not available in the right quantities,
or materials and equipment
are left behind at the
site, causing additional journeys
with extra fuel costs and
wages. A particularly weak
spot from the ecological point
of view is unnecessary distances
between suppliers (e.g.
of prefabricated elements)
and the construction site.
teCHniCAL uPGrAdinG
Technical improvements can
often be made by selecting appropriate
construction plant in
appropriate quantities. Manufacturers
of modern machinery
are well aware of the im-
portance of efficiency and the
reduction of both fuel consumption
and emissions: fuel
savings of up to 50% and Co2 reductions of several million
tons a year are considered
realistic in terms of currently
available technologies. What
is lacking is acceptance of
these by the market. A specific
problem is the difficulty of
comparing construction machinery
performances, due
on the one hand to incomplete
information from manufacturers,
and on the other to the
lack of a generally accepted
standard for determining the
fuel consumption of construction
plant. It is up to the
relevant organizations and authorities
to change this state
of affairs.
tAPPinG enerGy-
sAVinG PotentiALs
Informing and motivating con-
struction workers across the
entire spectrum of building site
trades and professions is a
major factor in lifting the ecological
profile. However efficient
a machine, the influence
of the operator on fuel consumption
and productivity increases
with every new generation
of equipment.
A cross-European survey
conducted by UW’s Center
for Technical Process Management
reveals a significant
deficit in the awareness
and exploitation of energy
saving potentials in the construction
industry. Although
83% of respondents assumed
that environmental and
climatic factors would play an
increasing role in future projects
and commissions, this
awareness was not reflected
in knowledge of energy
efficiency and Co emission
2
potentials on the building site.
Approximately one third
of those questioned could
say nothing about the level of
their energy costs at all.
Interdisciplinary Center for
Technical Process Management
Pauluskirchstr. 9
42285 Wuppertal
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Manfred
Helmus
Dipl.-Ing. Selcuk Nisancioglu
Dipl.-Ing.(FH) Anne
Christine Randel
T: +49 (0)202 439-4191
E: s.nisancioglu@
uni-wuppertal.de
kwww.iz3.uni-wuppertal.de
03_UW_RESEARCH
55