According to data requested by HotNews.ro, the Palace of the Parliament, the third largest building in the world, paid 16.2 million lei for electricity and heat last year. The administrators of the building plan to build a tri-generator (electricity, heat and air conditioning at the same time) and modernize the power grid with the help of artificial intelligence. Emilia Cerna Mladin, president of the Association of Energy Auditors of Buildings in Romania, which conducted an energy audit of the building six years ago, says the big problem is the very large windows and old joinery.

The electricity bill was 9.76 million lei, consumption 11.5 million kWh, for the Palace of the Parliament and the underground garage, and the electricity supplier is Hidroelectrica, say representatives of the institution.

This results in a cost of 0.84 lei/kWh compared to the rates paid by domestic consumers.

“The building consumes approximately 10% of all household consumption in Bucharest. This is a lot,” Dumitru Kizelice, president of the Association of Intellectual Energy, explained to HotNews.ro.

The bills are paid in full by the Chamber of Deputies, then they are distributed in percentage to other institutions in the building (Senate of Romania, Constitutional Court of Romania, National Museum of Contemporary Art of Romania, National Museum of Contemporary Art of Romania, Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration, Legislative Council, General Inspection of Romanian police, etc.).

The building is heated by the main heating agent provided by Compania Municipală Termoenergetica Bucharest, and last year the thermal energy bill was 6.5 million lei.

The building has its own heating point, which increases the temperature of the received agent. According to the Chamber of Deputies, with a capacity of 32 Gcal, it is considered the largest thermal point in Europe.

Big problem: big windows and old joinery

In 2019, the administrators of the building conducted an energy audit, after which they took a number of measures that, according to them, reduced electricity consumption to the level of an average apartment: 2.73 kWh/m2/month, facade 2.25 kWh/m2/month (how much is the apartment).

Emilia Cerna Mladin, president of the Association of Energy Auditors for Buildings of Romania, participated in the energy audit.

According to her, the Palace of the Parliament was assigned to energy class B on the scale from A to G, where A is the class of efficient buildings, and G is the building with the highest consumption.

“Her big problem is the windows, the joinery, which was deformed. It is expensive and difficult to replace. It was made of aluminum frames that were produced in Slatin at the time and which are no longer produced, and this is the problem of embedding in the decorative stone from the outside that covers the entire building,” Mladin told HotNews.ro.

In his opinion, windows should be changed at least gradually, even if this process will be very expensive.

“This is something very difficult to do, the windows are even seven meters long.”

Mladin insisted that it is a myth that this building is extremely energy efficient.

“This building is not bad. We have installed instruments to measure temperature and humidity, but the big problem is the carpentry.

The building remains a very important tourist attraction in Bucharest and is on the list of places to visit for most tourists who come to our city. I would like us to sound the alarm to prevent its degradation,” she added.

What measures were taken based on the results of the inspection

For the electricity system:

• The festive lighting installations were modernized by replacing them with LED ones, and the lamps were completely replaced in some areas.
• The lighting sources are controlled by a technical dispatcher using a Building Management System (BMS) type program that contains lighting scenarios based on the activity and degree of occupancy of the building’s space and solar energy.
• During 2023, this project advanced by implementing energy-efficient measures also at the level of the building’s main facade (Constitution Square area).
• Thus, the lighting of the main facade is currently provided by 452 LED lighting sources connected to the central server with the help of 6 controller-type equipment, which allows individually dynamically adapting the light flow transmitted to the facade, according to weather conditions and the level of local illumination of the perimeter alleys.

This set of measures made it possible to save about 20,000 euros/year.

For heating:

• The thermal rehabilitation operation of some glazed areas related to the building was started by replacing the old external carpentry structure with heat-insulating aluminum carpentry plate, paying special attention to thermally unfavorable areas (north facade, areas of lower premises).

“Measures taken in the direction of increasing the efficiency of installations and reducing energy consumption have yielded results aimed at dispelling the myth of an “energy-hungry” and energy-efficient building,” emphasized representatives of the Chamber of Deputies.

What are the plans for the next period?

The institution is conducting a feasibility study for a highly efficient trigeneration plant with low emissions (simultaneously producing electricity, heat and air conditioning), which may be ready this year or next.

• “Thus, the proposed system will be created as an energy source with the main function to meet the needs of heating, cooling and electricity for own consumption, without abandoning the district heating system, and which will allow the production of thermal energy with the help of heat pumps, even in direct combination with co/trigeneration and with heating agent from a centralized system.
• The system will allow local production of electricity from photovoltaic systems, while the mix of energy sources does not limit the capacity of renewable sources,” the institution’s response also states.

I asked Dumitra Ciselice, an energy efficiency expert, whether it was a good idea to build our own power plant for the Palace of Parliament.

According to him, the trigeneration plant uses gas as fuel. At the moment, the Palace of Parliament is not connected to the natural gas network.

“This is a deviation from such behavior. First, they will increase their emissions, not reduce them. Now the building has no emissions, but as soon as it uses gas, it will also have to pay for carbon dioxide emission certificates, so I don’t see where the efficiency of the account is,” the expert noted.

He added that the construction of the gas plant in the parliament contradicts the plan voted last week in Brussels, which aims to reduce gas consumption at the EU level and ban fossil fuel thermal power plants by 2040.

“In order to amortize such an investment, it must work for decades. The big advantage is that if you use a trigeneration system, you increase your output, that is, from the same cubic meter of gas, you also make electricity, heat and cold air.”

Lighting system with artificial intelligence

At the same time, the Chamber of Deputies is preparing a pilot project for the implementation of a command and control system with the introduction of artificial intelligence, which will be used to control the lighting systems, which, according to estimates, will allow for a 40% reduction in electricity consumption in all controlled areas, also indicated in the response, received from the Chamber of Deputies.

There is also the intention to continue the modernization programs of indoor and outdoor lighting installations and the introduction of systems that automatically turn on and off the light or even adjust the light flow depending on the activity in the area (these systems are also at the pilot project and testing stage).

Kiselice says of these plans: “Keeping the lighting system efficient has a certain logic, since the electricity bill is the highest. But the digitized system they want is extremely expensive and I don’t believe the 40% they estimate. Maybe only for a segment, a certain section of the building.”

What institutions are located in the Palace of Parliament

The building has an area of ​​365,000 square meters and ranks 1st in the world in the Book of Records of Administrative Buildings (civilian), respectively 3rd in the world by volume; it is the heaviest and most expensive in the world, according to the website of the Chamber of Deputies.

Since 1980, an area that is a fifth of Bucharest (4.5 km long and 2 km wide), an area equivalent to several arrondissements of Paris or a district of Venice, has been destroyed.

At the time of the 1989 revolution, the building was 60% complete. The work lasted from 1992 to 1996.

The building was supposed to be a structure that glorified socialism, communism and totalitarianism, and today it houses the key institutions of the Romanian state, such as the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate, the Legislative Council or the Constitutional Court.

From next year, Government activities will also move to Parliament House as restoration work begins at Victoria Palace.