The Work Programme is one of the flagship publications of CEN and CENELEC, setting out the priorities and most important actions in European standardization for the year ahead.
CEN and CENELEC are looking forward to working together with their members and partners (as ELA) and with the European institutions to build a European Standardization system that is effective, inclusive, and future-oriented, to the benefit of Europe’s economy, industry and citizens.
It’s available for you here.
The Swiss Lift Association VSA has published the following leaflet on external installations in the lift shaft/machine room.
The updated leaflet is available in both German and French :
Leaflet on external installations in the lift shaft/machine room – German
Leaflet on external installations in the lift shaft/machine room – French
Smart technologies will be an essential enabler to decarbonize the building sector, while offering healthier, more efficient, safer and comfortable living environments.
To embrace this opportunity, Member States are now officially invited to contribute to the optional pilot testing of the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI), a rating scheme designed to assess our buildings’ capacity to accommodate smart-ready services, which was introduced in the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and its subsequent regulations. To work hand in hand with and to support this roll-out and testing phase, the European Commission DG Energy has launched its dedicated technical assistance service for testing and implementation of the SRI.
The ‘smartness’ of a building refers to its ability to sense, interpret, communicate and actively respond in an efficient manner to changing conditions in relation to :
The SRI rates the smart readiness of buildings (or building units) in their capability to perform 3 key functionalities:
The SRI will raise awareness of the benefits promised by smart building technologies, such as building automation and electronic monitoring of building systems including heating, hot water, ventilation, lighting, etc.
Through the implementation of the SRI framework, technological innovation in the construction sector is supported, which creates an incentive for the integration of cutting-edge smart technologies in buildings.
Further information on SRI can be found on Smart readiness indicator | Energy (europa.eu)
The smart readiness indicator was adopted by the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive “EPBD” in 2018, and its subsequent regulations (Delegated Regulation and Implementing Regulation) have triggered an optional testing and implementation phase.
Therefore, EU countries and regions may decide to implement the SRI on (part of) their territory, for all buildings or only for certain categories of buildings.
The Commission will provide support and guidance to EU countries and regions that undertake a test phase of the SRI. A FAQ will be made available and kept updated.
The SRI platform will offer a permanent forum to allow different interested parties, including private sectors, academia, Member States representatives and the Commission Services, to meet and exchange information and share experiences on national SRI testing, implementation, recommendations on possible evolutions and next steps of the SRI.
A two year service contract has been awarded to a team comprised of VITO (Belgium), Waide Strategic Efficiency Europe (Ireland), Research to Market (R2M) Solution (France) and LIST, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology.
This contract will provide technical assistance to the European Commission services and to Member States in the first phases of the testing and implementation of the SRI. This will include the set-up of a direct support framework in cooperation with Member States and stakeholders, including a helpdesk and technical and training material. The contract will also assist in the preparation of implementation guidance and provide additional technical support. Finally, the contract will assist the European Commission services in the promotion of the SRI, including the establishment and operation of a SRI Platform, which will consist of a multi-stakeholder forum to support and monitor the implementation of the SRI, and to issue recommendations on possible future evolutions of the SRI.
A first meeting of the SRI platform will be planned for the end of the year. The format and timing of this meeting will be announced in later communications.
By Massimo Beccarini
Global commitments and actions to avert the worst effects of climate change are growing, but they still fall far short of the target to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The European Commission has stated that the European building sector is the largest single energy consumer in the EU, responsible for approximately 40 percent of energy consumption and 36 percent of CO2 emissions in the EU. It is estimated that lifts consume between two and five percent of the energy consumption of buildings. The lift industry can therefore contribute towards decarbonizing the built environment by providing energy efficient solutions, and reducing the carbon emitted during the production of materials.
Net zero and the impact of the building sector
Net zero is another term for carbon neutrality; i.e. when the balance between the total amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere is equal. The EC has set a long-term goal of becoming climate neutral by 2050[1], in line with global commitments to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep the goal of 1.5 degrees within reach[2].
The EC has set various initiatives and schemes in place to help achieve this difficult task. These include the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)[3], the European Green Deal[4] and the new Social Climate Fund[5].
The building sector is the largest single energy consumer in Europe[6]. Around 75 percent of current building stock in the EU is deemed energy inefficient, meaning that a large proportion of the energy used goes to waste. Smart solutions and energy efficient materials are needed not only for new buildings, but also for the renovation of existing buildings, which could reduce the EU’s total energy consumption by five to six percent and lower carbon dioxide emissions by about five percent. Yet, on average, less than one percent of the national building stock is renovated each year. In order to meet the EU climate and energy objectives, the current rates of renovations should at least double.
Decarbonizing these buildings in time to reach the 2050 target remains an enormous challenge, especially considering that of the buildings expected to still exist 30 years from now, an estimated 97 percent will need to be renovated to make them carbon neutral.
Renovation is key for reducing the energy consumption of buildings, for bringing down emissions and for reducing energy bills. In addition, renovation generates local jobs and economic growth, making the EU more resilient after the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
How lifts can contribute towards net zero
Older lifts can consume as much as 10 percent of a building’s energy, although this varies depending on the technology with which they operate, the number of lifts in the building, the number of floors they serve and the frequency with which they are used.
New lifts are comparatively low consumers of energy thanks to new advances in technology. But it is also possible to go a step further to achieve net zero lifts. Some of the methods of doing this are to use solar panels on the roof of the lift shaft, cables that reduce energy waste, regenerative lift drives that recapture energy when the lift is in motion, energy efficient lighting and sensors that activate lights and fans only when the lift is occupied. Relay switches can also be swapped for more energy efficient microprocessors within the control panel.
In addition to this, lift manufacturers should also work to raise awareness among customers about the benefits of energy efficient technologies, implement a strategy for attractive modernization upgrade plans, and continually work to improve sustainability and reduce their material usage and carbon footprint in operational and manufacturing processes.
The role of lift associations
As the voice of the European lift industry, ELA is working to create awareness on the role of lifts in relation to climate change. In order to effect real change, a functioning market must exist for energy‐efficient lifts and green products. Currently, market demand is limited for various reasons, mainly due to low awareness among building stakeholders on the role of the lift industry and its improvement potential to reduce energy costs needed to operate buildings. ELA’s Energy and Environment Committee is actively involved in educating construction and building industry stakeholders on how new innovations in lift technologies can bring benefits to the overall energy efficiency performance of buildings.
To move the market towards energy efficient lifts, ELA is also working to help policy makers establish an appropriate framework to support the ecological transition of the lift industry. ELA is currently lobbying the EC for the inclusion of lifts, escalators and moving walks within the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) in order to make a measurable contribution towards the EU’s ambitious goals. As part of its Eco Strategy, ELA intends to support EU objectives for energy efficient technologies and sustainable materials, ensure that lifts contribute to smart building rating systems, and help create favorable conditions for modernizing existing lift stocks.
Taking action towards real progress
As the lift industry starts setting commitments and roadmaps towards net zero products and operations, this will too encourage suppliers and other players along the value chain to shift towards more sustainable solutions and practices. Action must therefore be taken urgently to reduce the energy that is needed to operate more than six million of existing lifts installed in the EU as well as all the new lifts that will be installed every year.
National associations, lift manufacturers, SMEs and component manufacturers are all urged to make commitments to reduce carbon emissions and help meet the overall European target of reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. ELA members can also contribute their expertise at the highest levels towards the efforts to build a net zero industry.
Visit the ELA website for more information about the work of the Energy and Environment Committee: https://ela-aisbl.eu
References
[1] European Commission, “2050 long-term strategy”: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/eu-action/climate-strategies-targets/2050-long-term-strategy_en
[2] UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021, “COP26 goals”: https://ukcop26.org/cop26-goals/
[3] European Commission, “Recovery and Resilience Facility”: https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/recovery-coronavirus/recovery-and-resilience-facility_enm
[4] European Commission, “A European Green Deal”: https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en
[5] European Commission, “Social Climate Fund”: https://ec.europa.eu/clima/eu-action/european-green-deal/delivering-european-green-deal/social-climate-fund_en
[6] European Commission, “In Focus: Energy Efficiency in Buildings”: https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/focus-energy-efficiency-buildings-2020-lut-17_en#:
The final report of the Ecodesign Preparatory Study for Lifts was published and is awaiting decision-making by the European Commission.
Although technically possible, the study holder’s policy recommendation points out that there are several difficulties implementing an ecodesign regulation for lifts and identifies potential that the EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) might be more appropriate to promote the energy performance of lifts.
Accordingly, the study team proposes a possible set of recommendations that are in line with ELA’s position on ecodesign regulations:
However, as the decision from the European Commission has not been taken yet, we must wait for its final stance to further assess the topic. As further step, the ELA Secretary General will touch base with the European Commission to comprehend the decision-making process and to clarify the complexities that such regulation may bring along.
Meanwhile the ELA Board accepted the proposal of initiating a collection for ecological data. The aim of this approach is to anticipate the law-making process if applicable and to support further discussions with the EU Commission to achieve appropriate decision-making when needed. The data collection is focusing mostly on data about annual standby and travel energy consumption as per EN ISO 25745-2 standard and application of design options listed in the study. The Statistical Committee will likely assist with the collection process.
By Kari Suihkonen, Chair of the Digitalization and Cybersecurity Committee at the European Lift Association
The buildings of the future are likely to be much more intelligent than they are now. Advances in technology are allowing systems and equipment within a building to communicate with each other, send real time status updates to the cloud and make user convenience, safety and comfort the top priority. Sensors, connected systems and big data analytics are driving transformation for all types of technology, and the lift industry must adapt to the IoT trend to become included in the now vast ecosystem of connected “things” that communicate with each other to unlock enhanced functionality.
Currently, digitalization presents a major challenge to the industry. Although lift manufacturers and service providers are beginning to innovate in this space to enable cloud-based predictive maintenance and touchless lift access, the main obstacle in unlocking all the possibilities of digital technology lies in the lack of interoperability between systems.
In the construction industry, a new trend for digitalization is taking hold. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is the digital process of creating and managing information for a building. The digital BIM model on a cloud-based platform integrates structured data to produce a “digital twin” representation of an asset across its lifecycle, from planning and design to construction and operations.
In several countries throughout the world, BIM is mandatory for all large or public building projects. Even in countries where it is not yet mandatory, adoption rates have steadily increased, as the benefits of BIM mean that building owners are increasingly demanding contractors that can deliver it. Because of this general trend in the construction industry, lift and component manufacturers are now finding themselves under pressure to include sensors and data analytics with their product and service offerings.
For manufacturers and service providers, digitalization is the clear innovation path for new products and services. The biggest benefit of digitalization is expected to be apparent in the service section, where the auditable trail of data that can be easily stored and searched will provide a great opportunity for transparency of maintenance in order to improve safety and operation of the lifts being maintained. Digitalization also encompasses predictive maintenance, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The problem, however, comes in when these individual pieces of “smart” technology connected to the lift need to communicate with other connected things as part of the building’s wider building management system (BMS) infrastructure. Smart lifts require interoperability where their interfaces with other systems in the building, such as fire alarm systems and access control systems, and a data stream connection is also required for the company that carries out maintenance on the equipment.
The European Lift Association’s Digitalization Committee defines interfaces as follows: “An interface is a shared boundary between two or more objects with the intention to communicate and exchange information. Interfaces can be physical (hardware) or non-physical (software) in nature. They are an enabling tool for digitization, but also are an opening point for additional threats that haven’t been there before.”
Interfaces in the lift environment have been in existence for a long time, but typically they have been complicated, proprietary and expensive. Now, with the advent of the IoT era, these interfaces are becoming cheaper and more widely used as demand increases.
Next to platforms and devices, interfaces are an integral part of and subject to the process of digitalization. External objects or building management systems which connect to the elevator via an interface can affect the operability of the installation.
European Lift Association (ELA) is committed to driving the vision of digitalization in the industry forward by promoting standard interfaces and interoperability. The aim is to achieve optimum safety and continuity with maximum functionality.
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), in cooperation with ELA, has developed a smart lift IoT system standard coupled to the oneM2M platform, but the drawback is that this particular platform is currently not commonly compatible with popular BMS interfaces, and it does not yet address the variety of lift functionality. To overcome these drawbacks, telecom experts must become more aware of the requirements of the lift and escalator world, in the same way that the lift experts must become more aware of modern telecom and interoperability methodologies.
European lift and escalator standards are plentiful, but most of these are centred around safety and usability. The lift industry is severely lacking in open interface standards, as most technologies are currently based on proprietary systems.
ELA is contributing to an ISO working group to standardise lift interfaces. For this, ELA is favouring close collaboration with standardization bodies that bring the communication expertise to the lift and escalator industry. Initial collaboration with ETSI has shown this approach to be very promising. If this is achieved, the adoption of digitalization within the industry is expected to accelerate in the next decade.
Although the path ahead to open interface standards will be challenging, the long-term benefits to the industry from the move to digitalization are expected to be far-reaching: improvements in data analytics, energy efficiency, predictive maintenance and overall performance will result in a massive uptick in innovation, improved safety and reduction in the downtime of lifts and escalators.
Article by Roger Beuret, Convenor of the ELA Ecodesign Working Group – 22 February 2019
There is a worldwide demand to reduce energy and resource consumption. The EU legislation on Ecodesign and energy labelling is a tool for improving the energy efficiency of products. It helps eliminate the least performing products from the market, contributing to the EU’s energy efficiency objective.
The latest Ecodesign Impact Accounting Status from October 2017 reports significant improvements for the period 2010 to 2020 in ecology as well as in economy:
Lifts were already studied in 2011 for the Working Plan 2012-2014 (WP2). At that time, they were not selected but marked for follow up. In the preparatory study to establish the Ecodesign Working Plan now 2016 to 2019 (initially 2015 – 2017) a potential of 8 TWh primary energy savings (equals 3.2 TWh/y final energy savings) in use phase until 2030 was put on the table by the Commission consultant and considered promising by the Commission. It must be noted however that due to lack of up to date information, the consultant pre-study bases itself mainly on the E4 Project which dates back before 2009, and these savings’ estimates seem completely unrealistic. The consultants will need to take into account the numerous improvements achieved since then for their savings prediction.
The aim of this preparatory study is to provide a detailed technical, ecological and economic analysis for the European Commission to decide for or against a regulation. Since July 2017 this preparatory study is in progress, open to all interested stakeholders for active contribution and participation. Following the “Methodology for Ecodesign of Energy related Products” (MEErP) of the European Commission seven tasks (shown below) are performed and draft reports published by the project team under the lead of Fraunhofer ISI.
By Carsten Henriksen, Chairman Codes & Standards Committee at the European Lift Association
A wide range of people depend on lifts for a variety of reasons, particularly those who live in densely populated urban areas. The lift has become a ubiquitous part of the urban environment; such a common, safe, and reliable feature of multi-level buildings that they are barely noticed and little appreciated vehicles for the transportation of people and goods. Indeed, people usually only really pay attention to lifts when they are out of service. In such instances it quickly becomes clear how essential these modern workhorses really are to the ease of urban life.
However, in many multi-level buildings that have been in existence for decades, building owners have found aging lift stocks difficult and costly to upgrade or replace. This leaves users at increased risk of injury from a lengthening list of safety hazards as older lift technologies become obsolete. Unfortunately, accidents – even fatal ones – do still happen on lifts and escalators, although they are quite rare.
Aside from generally improving safety, modernizing lifts comes with a raft of additional benefits, such as improved energy efficiency and sustainability as well as increased accessibility for people with disabilities.
More than six million lifts are in use today in Europe, and work to the satisfaction of the majority of users. But not everything about this picture is perfect. In many countries, more than half the existing lifts in use today are 25 years old or even older. Every market supplier in the lift industry has old lifts on its service portfolio – some even going back a hundred years or more. Only a small percentage of the lifts installed before the turn of this century (i.e., pre-2000) have been modernized to meet current “state of the art” requirements when it comes to safety and performance.
This is an ongoing problem: with each passing year, more and more lifts become obsolete as new models come on the market with technology that continuously improves overall safety, energy efficiency, communication, and maintenance. With the current trends of IoT, smart buildings and “net zero” targets making demands on the construction industry, lifts are facing some of the biggest changes in technology, functionality, and system architecture in living memory.
However, it is not all bad news. Just about any lift component can be replaced to improve the safety and operational performance of the overall system. Aesthetics, transportation capacity and comfort can be improved through a modernization of the car and the drive capabilities.
The end result can be a significant improvement in energy efficiency and sustainability for the building, lower maintenance costs for the lift owner, and increased safety, reliability and accessibility for users.
The current European Lifts Directive (2014/33/EU) is not retrospective and only regulates the installation of new lifts and the manufacture of new components for the industry. Of the lifts in use today in Europe, only a small percentage have been installed since the application of the new directive. The rest were installed before 2014, and for those the “state of the art” regarding technology shows clear gaps to the actual level of safety and performance.
Experts in the lift industry have compiled a list of 85 risks that can exist on old lifts, which are assessed under a gap analysis framework commonly known as EN 81-80 “SNEL” (Safety Norms for Existing Lifts) and forms part of the European Standard EN 81. Some of these 85 identified areas of risk can lead to fatal accidents and should urgently be addressed.
The difficulty is that in Europe there is no common set of regulations or standards on the matter of safety for existing lifts. Adoption of the EN 81-80 standard in EU member states is voluntary, so the uptake is dependent on national legislation & implementation in various jurisdictions.
In some countries, it is a legal requirement for the duty holder to carry out an EN 81-80 assessment. For example, in Germany, this risk assessment for any existing lifts not covered by the European Lifts Directive is now part of national legislation. Any deviation from the current “state of the art” standards will be noted in periodical inspections carried out by accredited national inspection bodies. The owner of the lift will then be given a deadline, according to the risk level found in the gap analysis, to bring the lift up to date with the minimum requirements.
Even in other EU states where it is not mandatory, a risk assessment of used lifts is still recommended towards maintaining the safety and performance of lifts over time.
In 2018, over 1,180 lift user accidents were recorded, with more than 20 fatalities and 60 causing “serious” injuries. When the root causes of these accidents were investigated, nearly half of these could have been avoided if the lift owner had taken actions to modernize their lifts based on a SNEL gap analysis.
The Safety, Accessibility and Energy efficiency in Existing Lifts (SAEL) Working Group, and the entirety of ELA as the voice of the elevator industry in Europe, must continuously work towards the adoption of standards for safer and better performing lifts, not only cover for new installations, but also for the safety of the existing lift base on the continent.
Although ELA continues to advocate for the acceptance and harmonious implementation of SNEL legislation throughout the EU member states for existing lift installations, individual lift owners are also urged to take action to modernize their existing lifts to prevent fatalities, further advance accessibility for disabled users and improve the overall energy efficiency of their buildings. A practical “step-by-step” approach can often be beneficial, easing the financial impact on the owner by splitting up the modernization investment into manageable pieces.
