Making technologically more sustainable with Kuijpers

Sustainability is a priority for building owners. Kuijpers family business focuses on technological and digital solutions to contribute to this. Cliff Willems, sales manager at Kuijpers, emphasizes how smart software enables significant savings without sacrificing comfort.

Kuijpers is a technical service provider in building climate systems. The family business realizes technical solutions in non-residential construction and industry. Utility customers range from the Rijksmuseum to a secondary school. A museum has different requirements than a school, but according to Cliff there is at least one common denominator: “All building owners have a comfort requirement, they want a certain indoor temperature. At a museum this is much more critical than at a secondary school, but everyone is always concerned with the indoor climate.”

Cliff is a sales manager in the data and energy monitoring department. “We combine a sustainable installation, for example a heat pump, with sensors. We analyze the collected data so that the heat pump performs optimally.” They do not limit themselves only to the climate installation. “In some cases we also look at other construction data, such as occupancy rate, light values or complaints from users.”

Comfortable in the cinema

A basic condition for a successful cinema visit is a comfortable indoor climate. Kuijpers is a strategic partner of the largest cinema chain in the Netherlands and has been carrying out maintenance on the installations in the majority of the locations since 2009. “We achieved an energy saving of 15 percent for this customer by only making digital adjustments. The locations initially indicated that they were already keeping a close eye on climate control, but there is much more technology hidden in it that you can optimize. You just need specialist knowledge for that.” Kuijpers specialists then look, for example, at the energy profile of the building or at the software of the building management system. “We often see that cooling and heating take place simultaneously. Sometimes even in the same room. By optimizing this you will make great strides.”

Insight

Organizations are increasingly expected to have insight into their energy consumption. Cliff: “There are various laws and obligations that require insight into data. You must be able to demonstrate with data that you are making things more sustainable. With our system we collect the energy consumption of a specific year and compare it with the previous year. We also include degree days. This is a calculation unit to include the temperature in calculations. This way you can compare a harsh winter with a mild winter.”

“We also help customers with grid congestion. If you have exceeded the contracted capacity a number of times, you can be completely disconnected by the grid operator. Of course you want to prevent that. Our system can help with this by switching off installations when there is a risk of exceeding the contracted capacity.”

Ultimately, it's all about balance, Cliff explains. “It is a matter of finding a balance between sustainability on the one hand and a good technical installation on the other. In addition, comfort is always central. We take the comfort requirements into account from the start and we save while maintaining comfort.” 

Kuijpers is a member of the FHI trade association and sponsor of the Digital Building of the Future conference. Would you like to know more about making buildings more sustainable? Visit the website for more information about the conference and register for a free visit.