Apartment-by-apartment heat metering: problems and solutions.
Introduction
Yu. Luzhkov: Muscovites are too wasteful in consuming energy resources. (Prime-TASS).
Muscovites are excessively wasteful in consuming energy resources, according to Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
“According to various sources, Moscow consumes 4 tons of equivalent fuel per person per year — this is the most wasteful consumption compared to other countries, for example, Sweden or Canada, where the climate is the same as Moscow,” Yu. Luzhkov said at a meeting of the capital’s government.
The mayor believes that saving energy resources by city residents will lead to a reduction in housing and communal services fees. «If we reduce consumption by at least 15-20 percent, this will not only be a big gift to the state, but also a reduction in personal expenses for housing and communal services,» said Yu. Luzhkov.
According to Yu. Luzhkov, «saving is one of the main tasks, and everything is important here — both energy and heat.»
Experts' opinion
According to most experts, the combination of apartment metering and regulated heat consumption provides the maximum opportunities for realizing the energy saving potential in residential buildings.
Subscribers have an incentive to monitor their heat consumption, just as, for example, they monitor their electricity consumption. Apartment metering systems are becoming relevant for Russia and are finding application here.
However, for their implementation it is necessary to comply with certain technical conditions. In addition, the most modern and accurate accounting system may not work if the issue of the procedure for settlements between consumers in an apartment building has not been resolved and the ways of its regulation have not been determined.
A matter of technology
The main technical condition for organizing per-apartment metering is the presence of horizontal heating distribution. In this case, the heat meter is installed at the entrance to the apartment. Otherwise, per-apartment metering is simply impossible (we are not considering per-radiator metering here, since its organization is based on other principles). It should be noted that today there is successful experience (for example, in Belarus and the Baltics) of converting buildings with a vertical (riser) heating system to a horizontal scheme. When building new modern residential complexes, this approach is already quite widely used now in Russia.
The choice of metering devices and network technologies for automatic readings is of key importance.
The heat meter must not only be reliable and metrologically stable, but also compact and easy to operate.
In addition, it is necessary to have the ability to take readings remotely, since metering devices are most often installed directly in apartments. For these purposes, as a rule, inexpensive dispatching technology based on the M-Bus protocol is used, which has already been tested in Russian conditions.
For example, such a system was used to organize data collection from meters in a business-class building on Tchaikovsky Street in Yaroslavl. Here, 61 heat meters are connected to two concentrators (M-Bus Master), which allow current readings and archives of calculators to be taken at any time.
«Data from all meters is sent to a computer, which automatically reads information at a specified interval. The convenience of the system lies in the simplicity of its setup and further use.
After all, it is the chairman of the HOA who has no special skills who has to control the readings,” says Igor Rachkov, a specialist at the Kroys company, which set up the metering system.
In many cases, it is necessary to organize the consolidation of data on the consumption of heat, water and electricity into a single database. This significantly simplifies the work of those responsible in the HOA who distribute payments between apartment owners.
However, if metering devices of different brands are used, there may be difficulties with the compatibility of data output formats. Therefore, some manufacturers, such as the Danish company Kamstrup, a leading global manufacturer and supplier of system solutions in energy metering, are developing technologies based on their own metering devices that make it easy to combine data on the consumption of all resources.
However, even if all technical conditions are met and high-quality and convenient metering devices are used, HOA managers (or service organizations) often face the problem of distributing bills for thermal energy.
Practical experience
An example is the residential complex «Novaya Zvezda» in St. Petersburg (Pesochnaya Embankment, 12), which was commissioned in April 2005. The design of this building included a technically sound and user-friendly system of individual apartment heat metering, which was predetermined by the high class of residential real estate.
However, calculations based on the instrument readings are not yet being made — a decision on this must be made by the HOA. But while there are a number of questions on the distribution of payments, consideration of this item is postponed.
What is the reason for this situation?
The building is supplied with heat by its own boiler room, which feeds the DHW, heating and air heating systems for supply ventilation.
The boiler room operating mode (and heat supply to apartments) is set by the operating organization and is maintained automatically depending on weather conditions. Residents can adjust the temperature in the premises using 4-pipe fan coils of the comfort climate system. Additional air heating is provided by the coolant supplied to the coils from the heating system, and cooling is carried out thanks to the Carrier chillers installed in the building.
Since the volume of heat energy consumption is regulated precisely by the comfort climate system, it was decided to organize per-apartment metering on fan coils.
«Each apartment has 2 MULTICAL® meters (a total of 156 devices for 78 apartments): one for cooling in the comfort climate system and cold water supply, the other for heat from fan coils and hot water recirculation,» says Alexander Lebedev, a specialist at Climate-prof, which installed the engineering systems in the building. «The choice of meters was determined by their ability to operate in heat supply and cooling systems, as well as the required accuracy and the ability to integrate into a single network. Dispatching and control are based on the LonWorks system.»
The final adjustment of the entire accounting system has not yet been carried out, although the operating organization already has the ability to use the data from the devices to solve its own problems in servicing the engineering systems of the residential complex.
“The computers are installed in the panels inside the apartments,” explains Alexander Lebedev, “and this has caused a number of problems.
Firstly, it was difficult to choose a time for commissioning, since it was difficult to catch the owners of the house. Secondly, many moved the panels during repairs, so everything had to be reconnected. In addition, not all apartments have been renovated yet, so the comfort climate system does not work everywhere.»
Another problem is related to the chiller operating mode. As the chief engineer of the facility, a specialist in the Comfort Management of RBI Holding, Alexander Petrochenkov explains: «For example, last winter only two apartments used air cooling, others did not have such a need.
The question of who should be charged for the chiller service and the electricity it consumes in such a case and in what amount has not been finally settled.»
One of the options for solving this issue was found by the HOA «NEO», formed in house No. 45 on Lenin Street in Khabarovsk. Here, the comfort climate system provides air cooling in the premises. For payments for its service, the residents agreed to use the following scheme.
«If fan coils operate in all apartments, then the chiller operates in the optimal mode with high efficiency, in this case, for every kilowatt of cooling energy there is 0.46 kW of electricity,» says the chairman of the HOA Andrey Atroshchenkov. «To calculate this value, we divided the chiller's rated consumption by its maximum cooling capacity. Otherwise, the efficiency is significantly lower.
We do it this way: those who use cooling pay for electricity at a rate of 0.46 kW-hour in accordance with the readings of MULTICAL® cold meters.
And the remaining difference, together with the payment for the maintenance and servicing of the chiller, we divide among all the owners, proportionally to the area of the apartments. Thus, we get two components, and the second part is the payment for the opportunity to use the service.»
When distributing heat bills, the HOA also faced the difficult task of accounting for energy consumption for different purposes — heating, ventilation, hot water supply. The house is connected to the city heating network, the heating of the premises is regulated by radiator thermostats. Apartment metering is organized. «We have a common heat meter at the entrance to the house,» explains the chairman of the HOA, «and then the coolant goes to three different systems: heating, hot water supply and the air heating system for supply ventilation.
Today, the ventilation does not work, so we distribute payments as follows.
How much energy goes to heating can be calculated by summing up the data from all apartment heat meters.
Then we subtract this figure from the total consumption of the house and consider the remainder as the costs of hot water supply (heating of common areas in the residential complex is minimal and we decided not to take it into account). Then we divide this amount between the apartments in proportion to their water consumption.
But how we will calculate the payment for ventilation is not yet clear.»
Thus, if there are several systems using thermal energy in the building (heating, hot water supply, air conditioning), it is advisable to install separate common house heat meters for each of them. This will allow you to receive the data necessary to generate separate bills for these services. In addition, the presence of summary indicators makes it easier to balance and reconcile data with the heating company.
Legal aspects of accounting
According to the law, only the provider of these services (the energy supply organization), which the HOA is not, can charge for housing and communal services. The heat company cannot accept apartment meters for commercial metering, since the boundary of balance sheet ownership is the wall of the building. Therefore, the situation with apartment metering of heat is different from that with water and electricity — settlements within the HOA can only be carried out within the framework of agreements between its participants. As has been shown, achieving them is not always easy, and not so much because of the reluctance of people to find a common language, but because of the lack of experience. Experts believe that the preparation of recommended calculation schemes, as well as the creation of the necessary regulatory framework, can help owners in this matter.
Several other issues will have to be taken into account when developing these schemes. In particular, the organization of settlements for heating stairwells and servicing equipment. Their solution also requires revision of the legislation.
For example, as noted by Alexander Verbitsky, leading researcher at the State Unitary Enterprise MosvodokanalNIIproekt: “In Europe, payment for heating “common areas” is regulated as follows. From 20 to 50% of the amount of heat measured at the entrance to the building is distributed between apartments proportionally to their area (non-regulated component). The rest of the payment is made in accordance with meter readings.
Unfortunately, the developers of the “Rules for the Provision of Public Utilities to Citizens” (PPKU) ignored the European experience. Therefore, today we can only talk about the formal existence of the necessary regulatory documents.”
«The regulated share should be 70%,» says Vadim Livchak, Head of the Department of Energy Efficiency of Construction at Mosgosexpertiza and Vice President of the Non-Profit Partnership «AVOK». «In addition, the specific heat consumption per square meter of an apartment, depending on its location (corner, on the first or last floor, in the middle of the building), can vary, according to some data, by two times. Therefore, appropriate coefficients should be introduced for the location of the apartment. Probably, another increasing coefficient should be introduced for the constant component, allowing for the heating of stairwells and other common areas.»
For buildings where various engineering systems using thermal energy operate, an individual calculation scheme is required. It will allow taking into account the project features, financial interests of residents, the operating company and the heat supplier.
For example, in some European countries, settlements between owners, energy supplying and operating organizations are carried out with the involvement of billing companies. They offer an optimal tariff scheme and take on all the settlements.
So, we can see that the prerequisites for the introduction of apartment metering exist today.
Modern technical means make it possible to solve almost any technical problem, and projects that have already been successfully implemented serve as clear evidence of this. The matter lies in organizing an effective system for distributing payments between homeowners. Taking into account the experience already existing in a number of HOAs, this is quite realistic.
ZAO Kamstrup