Sobriety and flexibility of buildings: SERCE is ready to accelerate the deployment of management solutions

Faced with climate and energy challenges, it calls for moving from theory to action, by massifying management solutions to massively reduce the energy footprint of buildings, and respond to the flexibility challenges necessary for the energy transition.

Buildings represent nearly 40% of final energy expenditure in France. The tertiary sector uses a third of electricity consumption during the winter peak, while only 6% of tertiary buildings are equipped with energy management systems. Properly operated and maintained, these systems could achieve energy savings of between 15 and 20%.

Based on this observation, the mission on “building management” of the CRE foresight committee formulates avenues for reflection to accelerate the use of management. They include proposals from the SERCE, built based on feedback from its members:

• Strengthening financial aid, in particular via the perpetuation of the temporary increase in 2023 of EECs linked to the installation and improvement of Technical Building Management (BMS) systems;
• Systematic production of a detailed energy diagnosis feeding into a metering plan;
• Systematization of regular commissioning(1) for Technical Building Management (BMS), essential to maintaining performance over time, and making it possible to integrate operators from the design and contracting phase;
• Assurance of interoperability of Technical Building Management (BMS) systems, allowing all building equipment to be connected to the control solution;
• Support for the deployment of the BACS decree(2) by the systematization of an “energy management” lot in the specifications of construction-renovation contracts for all subject buildings, but also through communication and awareness-raising actions for the sector on the importance of maintaining control systems.

The SERCE underlines the importance of supporting building managers in understanding the overall uses and functioning of their buildings, in order to build the most suitable management system. It is in fact essential to have a perfect understanding of the building (metering plan, energy audit), to set up an optimal management system, by installing open and scalable solutions.

It calls on public authorities to take up the recommendations set out in the report in order to create an environment conducive to the dissemination of good practices in building management and to support investment in energy management systems.

In doing so, they would help to facilitate the flexibility of consumption of uses in buildings, which would represent, according to RTE projections, a gain of 6 GW of power during peak periods.

(1) - Commissioning consists of all the tasks to be carried out to complete a new installation so that it reaches the level of contractual performance and creates the conditions to maintain it.

(2) - BACS Decree: obligation for non-residential tertiary buildings to implement a building automation and control system, by January 1, 2025 or January 1, 2027 depending on the case.