The potential for solar power production in the Swedish agriculture is significant but is highly limited by the capacity in the low-voltage grid. The use of battery storages may be a possibility to increase the self-consumption of solar power and reduce the power exchange to the grid, and thereby avoid expensive grid reinforcements.In order to build knowledge about both technical and user-related possibilities and challenges with grid-connected battery storages for Swedish farms with PV, RISE and Vattenfall have built a pilot plant on a farm in Hälsingland and conducted two sociotechnical studies with interviews and questionnaires concerning obstacles, drivers and benefits associated with battery storages, as they are perceived by Swedish farmers at present.The results point at a number of challenges for battery storages to become an attractive investment for farmers, which include:- Reliability: lifetime and performance of the battery technology is unclear.- Economy: profit versus investment costs.- Long-term storage: seasonal storage of energy is perceived as more attractive than short-term storage.- Supporting backup power: an added value that may motivate higher investment costs.- Climate and environmental benefits: important aspects that are unclear for the present battery technology.These challenges need to be addressed in technical system solutions, services and business models in order to motivate this particular group to invest in battery storages to complement their existing PV power plants.The results from the pilot plant also points at a number of practical benefits and possibilities associated with the system solution. Apart from creating value by cutting power peaks and enable increased self-consumption of solar power, the farmers appreciate the increased convenience provided by the batteries. Since the battery storage cuts the highest power peaks and thereby reduces the risk of local power failures, it is no longer crucial when in time power-consuming equipment is used. This offers a new flexibility in the daily routines. The main economic benefit raised by the farmers is the possibility of a lower fuse subscription.The results from Solbruket provide increased knowledge about farmers with PV and how battery storages can create value for the specific target group. This knowledge can be used by product and services developers to develop attractive technical solutions, services and business models targeting the specific market. However, it is crucial to keep in mind that the battery technology is perceived as immature, and that an investment is regarded as a significant risk. Only when there is balance between technical maturity and investment costs, it is reasonable for the consumer to consider different business models.

BuildE – Method for Quality Assurance of Energy Efficient Buildings is a general method for the quality assurance of the requirements regarding functionality, planning and production of energy efficient buildings. The method is based on the quality in each process being assured by using appropriate quality guidelines and check lists for documentation, communication and verification.

Energy efficiency concerns the entire workplace and a cooperative approach is important for achieving ambitious energy reduction targets. Despite this, many organisations still mainly regard energy efficiency as a technical issue involving just a few specialists. A focus on the social relations and processes that shape work on energy issues is lacking. The aim of this paper is to illuminate and explore social relations between the staff driving energy issues and their co-workers. The analysis presented is based upon two features shaping their mutual engagement for reducing energy use: the communication strategy on energy issues undertaken by the workplace and the support for energy efficiency and conservation among the staff. The study provides insights gained from an interview study done in a Swedish organisation as well as from social science research in the field. The result is a conceptual framework that describes four relationships between the drivers of change and their co-workers. These relationships are characterized as active, passive, non-existing and conditional engagement in energy efficiency and conservation. The framework can be used as a tool for identifying social constraints and possibilities for reducing the use of energy at workplaces as well as in other contexts.

Based on social and behavioural research, this project compile knowledge on energy management in organisations and companies. The purpose has been to examine how communication and collaboration within organisations and companies can be strengthened in order to promote sustainable energy management.

The literature demonstrates that energy efficiency is not of strategic importance for organisations and companies. It is not prioritised by the management, who do not invest in cost effective energy measures. The employees regard energy as an implied right and the facility managers’ ability to influence energy issues are restricted, as well as their time and resources to work with it. Poor communication between the various actors within the company give rise to conflicting goals between different interests, and a belief that energy efficiency is something a single person, a technician, occasionally works with. Companies and organisations with a successful energy strategy make it into an issue that the entire organisation addresses. They engage more people and more aspects of their activities while striving for sustainability. It puts the focus on collaboration and communication.

This project presents guidelines and recommendations about communication that can serve as support for considering energy efficiency measures and energy savings efforts. We structure these into three steps. Messages stating that energy efficiency is a priority and of concern for everyone. Approaches which highlight how energy efficiency can be communicated through for instance guidelines, dialogues, education, and visualization. These approaches should be adapted and incorporated into the companies’ activities and the daily work routines of the employees. Feedback on the use of energy showing to what extent the efforts made are effective and leads to a positive result. Research demonstrates that the more people who are involved in the work on energy efficiency, the better the results tend to be. Good results are, in turn, an important incentive for the continuous work on energy issues.

Norms, gender and collaboration in proptech Here, an engineering approach to norm criticism is used to study a male-dominated interdisciplinary digitization project in the area of prop tech. In property automation (prop tech) the participants are in principle exclusively men, and thus the platforms and program development that will be the basis for all prop tech development are coded in a male context. There are also major challenges, as in most interdisciplinary groups, where the balance of power is often skewed through different norms. The project has mainly addressed challenges due to the interdisciplinary groups, while the gender perspective has been given less focus. The focus on norms has been assigned a full work package, with a similar budget as the other work packages focused on other areas and the norm work package has interacted very closely with all parts of the project, including the more technical ones. In this way, the norm critics has created a platform of its own in the project, based on how a norm critical analysis could be offered to help other work packages in their tasks. Based on the work on norms; discussions, workshops and surveys have been supplemented with interviews, in close collaboration with other work packages. Through the norm-critical analysis, different groups, both within the project and in the industry around prop tech, have been identified. Differences between these groups relate to understanding of different types of technology, priorities, communication and balance of power. Norm criticism has been a way of supporting the entire project in both the expansion of business models and interaction between the various scientific areas that are part of the project. The norm criticism has been well received by the project group and many are aware that the industry is facing a change that requires new ways of thinking, new business models and new collaboration models. There is a new awareness in both the conversations within the project and the surveys and interviews based on the understanded need to see multiple perspectives. This awareness has also been used to broaden the business model. The understanding that it is more difficult to see the order of power for those who belong to the prioritized group has also increased. At the same time, we see a large effect of personal, or corporate, interest in norm criticism, which strongly influences how respondents react to the questions about norm criticism. The project shows that the method of using norm criticism in collaborative processes between different groups has been successful.

At present there is a lack of a concept which can be used to evaluate and compare efficiency for installed refrigeration systems using short term measurements. Traditionally COP (Coefficient of Performance) has been used but it has a weakness as a comparator as it is strongly dependent on operating conditions. System Efficiency Index (SEI) is the ratio between the measured COP and the COP for an ideal process, known as the Carnot efficiency operating between the same temperature levels. In collaboration between SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, IOR and VDMA the method has been further developed. This paper will focus on the method and results from the implementation of SEI from field measurements for, in the first step, condensing units and chillers. The principle is the same for all kind of refrigeration systems. In the next step more measurements for refrigeration systems will be evaluated.

Battery storage has been highlighted as one way to increase the share of renewables in energy systems. The use of local battery storage is also beneficial when reducing power variations in the grid, thereby contributing to more robust and cost-effective energy systems. The purpose of this paper is to investigate barriers, drivers and non-energy benefits (NEB) for investments in battery storage in photovoltaic systems (PV) in the context of farmers with PV systems in Sweden. The study is based on a questionnaire about barriers, driving forces and NEB for investment in battery storage connected to PV. The questionnaire was sent to farmers in Sweden who already have photovoltaics installed and about 100 persons answered, a response rate of 59%. The major barriers found are related to the technical and economic risks of investing in battery storage. One of the main conclusions is that the highest-ranked driver, i.e., to use a larger part of the produced electricity oneself, turns out to be the highest priority for the grid-owner seeking to reduce the need for extensive investments in the grid. The primary NEBs found were the possibility of becoming independent from grid electricity. © 2019 by the authors.

Policies for energy efficiency requirements in buildings have become more stringent according to EU2020 goals. Despite policy regulations, requirements for energy efficiency are not met in many new buildings. Some of the reasons for this energy performance gap are related to the building process. The aim with this paper is to describe a purposed method for quality assurance of sustainable buildings according to energy efficiency. The proposed method is called ByggaE, where 'Bygga' is the Swedish word for 'build' and E is the first letter in 'energy efficient'. It is a tool intended to lower the energy performance gap related to the building process by guiding the client and providers through the process to fulfill goals. The essence of ByggaE is the formulation of requirements by the client and the working process of identifying, handling and following up critical constructions and key issues. This working process involves all participants in the building project by using appropriate quality guidelines and checklists for documentation, communication and verification. ByggaE is a step forward ensuring that the building fulfills the defined functions and that conscious decisions are taken when goals have to be changed during the building project. The next steps are to ensure the usefulness of the method in practice by more testing and to spread knowledge about the method.

Energy efficiency is a cornerstone of climate change mitigation. For buildings, facility management is an essential part of achieving efficient energy use while keeping tenants satisfied. This interview study explores success factors and barriers for facility management in maintaining energy efficiency over time in four approximately 10-year-old non-residential premises built as so-called nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB) in Sweden. The study highlights the importance of functional digital tools, benchmarks, and building professionals’ involvement in ensuring energy efficiency. It also emphasizes the need for involvement communication and strategies to engage facility management in energy efficiency efforts. The study suggests that in-house and public policies can play a crucial role in sustaining high ambitions for energy efficiency. Access to professional support that is self-evident to use is identified as a critical success factor. Additionally, the research presents an analytic model that can be used in future studies to assess facility management organizations’ potential for maintaining energy performance in buildings over time. 

Det övergripande syftet med uppdraget är att få en detaljerad bild över byggnaders energiprestanda i Sverige. Den första etappen, förstudien, går ut på att beskriva metoden för hur denna analys ska göras. Som etapp 2 genomförs själva nulägesanalysen och slut¬ligen i etapp 3 analyseras resultat och slutsatser presenteras. I denna rapport redogörs för etapp 1, dvs metodbeskrivningen för nulägesanalysen. Nulägesanalysen ska senare kunna användas för att följa upp hur satsningar på Näranoll¬energibyggnader (NNE) påverkar energianvändningen i hela byggnadsbeståndet, inte bara i de faktiska demonstrationsprojekt som beviljas stöd och där uppföljning är betydligt enklare. Resultatet av nulägesanalysen, och den uppföljande analysen (planerad till 2015), ska i förlängningen kunna vara ett stöd när de nationella målnivåerna för näranollenergi-byggnader bestäms. I denna rapport redogörs för etapp 1, dvs metodbeskrivningen för nulägesanalysen. Rapporten beskriver vilka statistikkällor som finns idag samt en metod för hur dessa kan bidra till en mer detaljerad bild av byggnaders energiprestanda under ett valt referensår.