Kyivites are apprehensive about the first day of 2013. Mayor Oleksandr Popov admitted that the national budget for 2013 “deprives Kyiv of any possibility even to function in a normal way, let alone to develop further.” The funds allocated by the central government to the capital will not even cover the salaries of public employees. The lack of financing will cause “disruption in the functioning of public transport and utility companies,” argues Popov. So the administration will apparently have to raise the public utility tariffs. It was not without a reason that for a couple of weeks prior to the passing of the national budget, experts and local government officials had been emphasizing that the residents of the capital enjoy the lowest utility tariffs in Ukraine. In particular, deputy mayor Ruslan Kramarenko announced on the last day of November that the city budget had received almost five billion hryvnias to cover the gap between the real costs and actual prices for the utility services in 2012 (3.4 billion hryvnias last July and another 1.5 billion in November).
Meanwhile Berliners, for example, have long been using technologies which allow them not to worry about raising costs for housing maintenance. Unlike in Germany, in Ukraine energy-saving development has until recently been rather a prerogative of the private sector. Yet now our capital has made a move to embrace German expertise.
The 300,000 euro worth pilot project “Energy Efficiency in Buildings” has been implemented in the frameworks of the International Climate Protection Initiative under the auspices of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety together with the Ukrainian Ministry for Regional Development. The German presence is conspicuous immediately as you enter the newly-built apartment complex (consider at least the “zero level” button in the elevators, which normally start with 1 in Ukraine).
Christiana Hageneder, director of the project “Energy Efficiency in Buildings,” emphasized as she showed the journalists around that this was a pilot project, so energy efficiency was only not implemented on the full scale. “Back in 2009 we contacted the investor, who agreed to insulate the house at his own expense, whereas we provided energy-efficient equipment for the 16th floor, i.e., 26 apartments with the total area of 1,800 square meters,” said Hageneder.
According to her, this project, implemented according to German standards, is unique for Ukraine. Until now, such technologies have been typically applied in low-rise buildings and on a much smaller scale. “The installed technology will allow the owners of these apartments to save up to 50 percent energy, compared with the other new housing complexes, and up to 80 percent in comparison with typical older multi-storied apartment blocks in Kyiv,” added Hageneder.
At first glance, the innovative apartments look exactly like any other home: the same walls, ceilings, floors, and the uPVC windows. However, energy efficiency is inconspicuous, it is all about smaller details, such as the peculiarities of construction and materials. For instance, the outer walls of this building have a thermoinsulation layer which is 20 percent thicker than in other new complexes. The authors of the project note that the two-chamber uPVC windows with six-chamber profiles are air-tight, which allowed to achieve the total thermal transmittance (U-factor) of 1.0 m2K/W instead of the 0.6 m2K/W, standardized by the state construction regulations.
On the outside, the windows are protected with automatic blinds, which look like ordinary blinds but have broader planks. The automatic climate control, fitted on the roof, changes the angle of the planks depending on the direction and angle of sun rays. Besides, they can be operated manually.
To reduce heat loss, especially during ventilation, a special device was built in the walls next to windows. Sucking in air from the outside and letting out the inner air, such devices save up to 76 percent of energy. They also provide for a comfortable microclimate in apartments, as they supply fresh air at room temperatures (unlike air conditioners, which actually cools only the inner air.
Mykola Makarenko, owner of an apartment furbished with innovative technologies, says that he did not think long about which apartment to choose, and he did not shy from the experimental status of his new home. “My job is related to the construction industry. Frankly, it was my German friends who advised me to purchase an apartment in this complex. I have been to Germany and seen all these technologies work,” said Makarenko. He also admires the heating system, which allows one to see the economy. Heat is provided by three sources, instead of one centralized boiler facility, as is typical for the vast majority of apartment buildings. In the summer, heat is accumulated by the photovoltaic installation of flat collector panes, with a total area of 90 square meters. In the colder season, when sun radiation decreases, heat is generated by four 60 kW heat pumps which, in particular, suck in the warm air from ventilation ducts. In case of lower outside temperatures and little solar radiation the system switches to central heating mode, provided by one of the district heating power plants. The developers say that central heating is used to raise the temperature of heating and hot water when energy-saving technology will lack power.
To preserve the produced thermal energy, accumulating reservoirs are mounted on the top of the building. This apartment complex was only partly equipped with energy-efficient systems, but photovoltaics occupy almost the entire roof surface. Tetiana Timakova, who represents Bosch, the producer of all the equipment for this pilot project, explains that the roof area will suffice to install photovoltaic installations for all apartments in the building. However, such operations should preferably be performed at the stage of construction, because afterwards they can be quite costly and besides, the process of installation could inconvenience other inhabitants of the building. According to Timakova, the cost of installing such energy efficient equipment at the stage of construction could amount to 10-25 percent of the actual price of the apartment, while the break-even point will be achieved in 8 to 10 years.
Hageneder believes that such technology is much wanted and will help save Ukrainians’ personal finance, as well as natural resources. But to promote energy conservation and make it more popular, Ukraine’s government has to meet the people halfway. In particular, by amending the construction and development legislation. Given the most recent tendencies related to natural gas prices, we can forecast that this experiment will become a norm for Ukraine in the future. The architect Tetiana Ernst, who designs energy-efficient homes, says that developers in a number of Ukraine’s cities have already decided to build fully energy-efficient multi-storied apartment complexes. “We have commissions from Cherkasy, Simferopol, and some other cities for designs of high-rise buildings, complete with energy-efficient technological installations. But so far all of them only exist on paper,” says the architect.
Meanwhile, Pavlo Melnychenko, chief executive of the architecture firm Imperia-M, says that one should not expect a dramatic switch from “conventional” housing construction to its energy-efficient variety. “These technologies are promising. But at the moment Ukrainians are not prepared to pay 10 or 20 percent extra for them,” states he, adding that owners of detached houses can clearly see the principles of economy, underlying these technologies, than people who live in an apartment. “People do not realize that by paying an extra 100 dollars per square meter they will be able to save more in the future. So, large-scale implementation of energy-efficient technologies in the construction of apartment complexes will not become a norm before a generation or two changes.”
