Total economic optimisation
Preparation of a general concept of a new build or retrofit housing project based on a total economic optimisation of all possible energy saving technologies. The total economic optimisation is based on local parameters, heating, gas, electricity and water prices. The result - an economic prioritisation of all technologies - is used as base for composition of a concept that gives optimum energy savings without an increase of the rent for the tenants. CENERGIA has developed a special computer tool, Optibuild, for total economic optimisation.
Download Optibuild

Solar energy - solar heating, PV-modules and passive solar heating
CENERGIA’s employees have more than twenty years’ experience of development, test, planning and follow-up on solar energy systems.

CENERGIA has participated in development of solar collectors and storage tanks and has planned a large number of small and large solar heating systems, including for municipal old peoples’ homes. CENERGIA has experience of both water and airborne solar heating systems and systems with interseasonal heating storage.

Within the PV field (PV = photovoltaic that is direct transformation of sunlight to electricity), Cenergia works in a number of projects with integration of PV-modules in the weather screen of a building - roof and facades. CENERGIA is initiator of the EU-JOULE project PV-VENT, where an international cooperation team examines and demonstrates the possibilities of utilising PV-modules to run ventilation systems.

Passive solar heating is utilisation of solar energy for heating through deliberate design and orientation of buildings. As the building construction is included as a storage for the solar energy, the design has to be optimised by use of a dynamic simulation programme where the temperature in the building can be calculated hourly. To obtain the best possible utilisation of the passive solar heating it is important to take this into consideration very early in the planning process.

CENERGIA has participated in the preparation of BPS-directions and Northern and international planning manuals within the solar energy field.

Ecology - low-energy building - sustainability
CENERGIA’s basic attitude is that sustainable human settlement is not just going to be for particular social categories, grass roots and fiery souls with the initiative and will to realise ecological building from the bottom, but should be a realistic possibility for everybody.

Based on and know-how from development and pilot projects, we develop and combine technologies that individually suit with future house owners’ needs and requirements. At the same time, materials, constructions and installations are chosen to future technology, which as regards reliability comes up to traditional technology and whose operation is not unnecessarily complicated and time-consuming.

Fields of activity:

Energy savings, heating (reduction of transmission and ventilation loss);
Energy savings, electricity (lighting, refrigerator/freezer, washer, appliances);
Utilisation of solar energy (active and passive solar heating and PV-modules);
Heating systems for low-energy housing, low temperature heating;
Heat recovery;
Healthy building materials;
Product and material assessment by use of lifecycle assessments;
Involvement of tenants through recognition of the resource circulation;
Compost toilets;
Urine collection;
Wastewater treatment;
Water savings;
Rainwater drainage (fascines);
Rainwater collection
Natural ventilation
Natural ventilation can in many cases be used with advantage instead of mechanical ventilation in schools and day-care centres. CENERGIA has planned several systems and has very positive experiences from these. Today natural ventilation is more than just opening and closing windows. With a rather simple control system it is possible to open and close dampers in either supply or exhaust ducts, with which the CO2and temperature levels can control e.g. the ventilation. Moreover, dampers for air intakes are placed so the air can be preheated, by means of which annoying draught are avoided. Several parameters form part of the analysis of natural ventilation versus mechanical ventilation: To what extent can the necessary air change be reached with natural ventilation alone? Or is there a need to assist with a ventilating fan? What consequence does it have that it is usually not possible to recover heat from the exhaust air? What is the economy of mechanical and natural ventilation respectively? CENERGIA is in possession of computer tools and the necessary experience in application of these to answer the questions above. We have also made both quantitative (measuring of CO2 and temperature) and qualitative analyses of the air quality before and after the installation of natural ventilation systems.

Low-energy ventilation
Many ventilation systems have been made in these years without minding the energy consumption. CENERGIA has several years’ experience of optimising ventilation systems from an energy-wise point of view by using e.g. low-energy ventilation fans and heat recovery with a high efficiency. An energy economical total assessment is usually made for each system.