An Interview with Jakub Pluta

 

 

 

 

My name is Jakub Pluta, R&D Engineer at IZNAB Sp. z o.o. I am in charge of the technical aspects of the implementation of the Heat4Cool solutions in the Polish demo site, in Chorzów.

 

Short description of your company:

IZNAB Sp. z o.o. is an Engineering and Consultancy SME focused on cost-effective processing technologies for many industries. We provide specialised services in the field of improvement of energy efficiency for buildings and industrial processes. IZNAB’s main role in the Heat4Cool project is to provide our own residential building in Chorzów (Poland), implement the Heat4Cool solutions, demonstrate how they operate and show the energy efficiency improvement. Moreover, IZNAB is carrying out the Life Cycle Analysis in the Heat4Cool project to study the environmental and economic impact of the project’s solutions and prove that the results meet our expectations in the field of its eco-friendliness and cost-effectiveness.

 

What is your motivation to participate in the project?

Developing H4C technology solutions and implementing them in the demo site building located in Poland – I am proud of it as a citizen and as a HVAC engineer.
As citizen, I prefer to live in a city where CO2 emissions and other pollutants are as low as possible. The outcomes from Heat4Cool technology solutions have already confirmed a good impact on the environment.
As a HVAC engineer, this is exactly in line with my knowledge on the State-of-the-art of the building retrofitting solutions which I know, and… I am simply proud to be part of it.

 

view of the demo site in Chorzów (Poland)

 

What are the energy challenges in your demo site?

In IZNAB’s building in Chorzów, there are still few apartments heated by coal boilers. They are much more harmful to the environment than gas boilers, which will be installed in the project. In fact, they will be supported by an air source heat pump and photovoltaic panels, so that we achieve a high share of renewable energy for the heating and the preparation of domestic hot water in the building. Moreover, Chorzów is the city located in one of the most industrialized areas of Poland, Silesia. There has always been air pollution in this area, causing smog which has quite negative effects on citizens’ health. Therefore, Chorzów and other Silesian cities are on a pathway to increase the share of use of renewable energy sources. This is another very important reason for Heat4Cool to present its solution here.

Another challenge is to ensure people that heating and sanitary hot water systems, monitored and controlled by computers, can be more reliable and perform better than separate, manually controlled installations.

 

Which are the expected benefits-results your company aims to demonstrate in the Heat4Cool project?

In our building in Chorzów, IZNAB will install an air source heat pump, supporting the existing and renovated installations. On the roof of the building, photovoltaic panels will be installed to provide electric power to the heat pump operation. For the micro installations using renewables, we will use support from other alternative sources. It will allow us to sell or store overproduced electric power to the local grid and use the major part of it for free during the year. In this manner, we will achieve higher energy efficiency and more savings. Sunamp’s innovative thermal energy storage based on phase-change materials (PCM storage) will be centrally installed in the building to store the heat during overproduction and use it during the peak demand. Everything will be monitored and controlled by a Self-Correcting Intelligent Building Energy Management Systems (SCI-BEMS).

At this stage, it is important to mention that the development of the solutions and retrofitting process of the building have been funded by the European Commission in the frame of Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.