Solar collection installation developed by EU project helps Turkish hospital meet energy needs
Turkey continues to develop economically meaning more and more building work is being undertaken leading to an enormous burden on power supply systems. Power outages, energy price increases are already bearing down on the supply so energy efficient renovation is high on the agenda for buildings, including the non-residential public stock. The fact that the country is prone to earthquakes adds a further challenge, demanding the careful selection of energy efficiency measures to ensure compliance with earthquake building standards. These standards take priority over any retrofitting works if the materials and systems used don’t match safety requirements. One example is the recent work done on the Adnan Menderes University Hospital, which sets out to make the system more efficient and sustainable. To further this goal, the EU-funded BRICKER demonstration project is currently installing a series of sun-tracking parabolic solar collectors, set to produce some 1 000kW. Although not specifically designed for an earthquake-prone area, this measure complies with seismic resistant regulations, due to the solar field being built at ground level and slightly away from any buildings. The intervention also includes a new tri-generation system which produces electricity, heating and cooling all in one go, thus making power go further. Once operational, it will be the first time a renewable energy source will have been used to produce electricity, heating and cooling in a tri-generation system. This ties in with Turkey’s energy efficiency law, introduced back in 2007, which requires all public buildings to adopt measures to reduce energy consumption and includes energy audits every few years. Renovation of these public buildings is subject to public procurement rules, and these are currently limited to three years. The BRICKER (Total Renovation Strategies for Energy Reduction in Public Building Stock) project is a four-year initiative aimed at developing a replicable and cost-effective system to retrofit existing public-owned non-residential buildings. By implementing a package of measures at two different demonstration sites in real conditions, it will provide guidance and strategies for addressing both the technological and regulatory challenges. Buildings will be considered as single energy-consumption units and at the same time, connected to other buildings forming high-energy efficient districts designed to be connected with other, neighbouring districts. These energy units will be able to provide advanced energy services (electrical and thermal) to other buildings in their district, making the building strategies replicable at district level in order to attract investments. For more information, please see: CORDIS project web page
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