Buildings, energy, technology and commissioning on political agenda
Instructive working visit Stientje van Veldhoven to Deerns and Priva D66 runner-up for the House of Representatives elections, Stientje van Veldhoven, has doubts about the reality of sustainability promises regarding buildings. The interview with her in Signalement last August prompted a working visit to two FHI companies, to clarify how technology can help to actually achieve the goals. And what needs to be done in The Hague to get that technology applied? FHI federation board member Piet van Veelen and FHI board member Kees Groeneveld accompanied Van Veldhoven on her visit to Deerns in Rijswijk and Priva in De Lier respectively. Both companies, engineering firm Deerns and manufacturer of climate control systems Priva, are members of the FHI Building Automation sector. Both operate from a more than solid sustainability objective. “Our goal is at least 20% savings in everything we do in 'building services',” was the opening statement by Erik Lousberg, chairman of Deerns Netherlands. “Through our leverage factor, the results with customers, we expect to save around 1,250 times our own footprint.” As a representative, Stientje naturally wanted to know whether this would also work in government buildings. “It is more difficult at Central Government Real Estate,” is the experience of Wouter Kok, Smart Building specialist at Deerns and managing director of the new spin-off company bGrid. “The trend is that the distance between property management and the user is becoming smaller. This is necessary in order to save, among other things, through a much higher occupancy rate in combination with more comfort. That is more difficult with Central Government Real Estate. Management there is organizationally further removed from the user.” Kok has practical examples available. “For a ministry building, achieving the objectives proved difficult to get the manager and users on the same page. At Deloitte's The Edge in Amsterdam this went faster and more risky innovations could also be tried out, with fantastic results.”
From this context, the suggestion was made to create 'testing grounds' within the government's procurement regime. Kok also appears to have experience with this, at a building of the Central Government Real Estate Agency for Rijkswaterstaat in Rijswijk. “A kind of competition has been organized there for a redevelopment aimed at sustainability. We made that building completely 'smart' in one week, during office hours. You can then continuously improve the energy use of the building, continuous commissioning becomes possible. And users can easily find free workspaces and colleagues. The savings are immediately 15 to 20% and the payback period is no more than five years.” “This is really low-hanging fruit,” Van Veldhoven responds and she immediately makes a link to the redevelopment of the House of Representatives building that is in preparation. It was agreed on site to investigate whether a more modern method of tendering is also possible there, with room for innovation. “There should be a challenge there.” It remains an impressive story of how Priva has developed from a supplier of heaters for greenhouses to an internationally operating company that now focuses on 'creating an environment for growth'. And then Jerry Vermaas, general manager of Building Automation Netherlands and Jan Westra, strategic business developer, talk about crossovers in the 'sustainable urban delta', 'indoor farming', 'urban farming' and the 'greenbelt' around the city. But when it comes to the real estate value chain, Priva supplies products to monitor the 'performance' of buildings. “We note that 80% of the buildings are not functioning as designed. Usually the entire system is ready within a year,” Vermaas experiences. “There is often a lack of people who have sufficient knowledge to be able to monitor.” Priva also has experience that Rijksvastgoedbeheer is doing relatively well as a public contracting authority. Stientje van Veldhoven's response is again very direct and wonderfully targeted for a politician. “We must strengthen the enforcement of sustainability requirements and we must show examples. Now is the time.” While talking, the conversation partners are in pretty good agreement. The raw materials agreement towards a circular economy must become leading for the 2017 transition agendas. And there must be pilots. “We can show TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, examples,” says Jan Westra, citing the TU Delft campus as such an example. So there is work to be done, but let's first hope that no Trumpian program will win in the elections in March. 
Nederlands