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eu.bac or European Building Automation and Controls Association is a Brussels-based industry platform supporting Home Controls, Building Automation and Energy Services for Buildings. It represents 25 companies. Eu.bac was founded in 2003 and allows only direct company membership. The association has offices in Brussels, London, Paris and Frankfurt.
The companies' activities are focused on energy controls, building automation components and systems that are used in homes and non-residential buildings. Besides efficient energy controls, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is the core of automation within a building that enables monitoring, regulation and automation to reduce the energy consumption. Energy efficiency and comfort are the major targets of building automation and home controls.
Within eu.bac, eu.ESCO works in the field of energy services. Energy service companies (ESCOs) with offerings in building automation and controls are the major contributors to this group. eu.ESCO works with its own logo and identity. eu.bac is more in the field of hardware, software and systems for Building Automation.
The President of eu.bac is Jean-Yves Blanc (Schneider Electric). Vice Presidents are Ernst Malcherek (Honeywell) and Gerhard Glinzerer (Herz Armaturen).
Certifications
BAC Systems and devices must comply with the standards set out by CEN/TC 247 and ISO/TC 205 (European & International Standardization Groups).
The group devised the marking scheme "eu.bac Certification for energy efficient products in the range of home controls and building automation", e.g. Electronic Radiator Thermostats, Room Thermostats, Heating controllers (OTC), Individual Zone Controllers (IZC), etcetera.... The certification Mark was requested in France by the Reglementation Thermique since RT 2005. The delivered Control Accuracy value CA is needed to calculate building energy demand.
In addition eu.bac set up an Energy Efficiency Label for Home Controls and Building Automation Products. This labeling scheme complements the European certification scheme and introduces a simple and market-oriented system.
For Building Automation and Controls Systems – BACS, eu.bac set up the Certification Scheme for Energy Efficiency Performance of BACS at delivery and system lifetime. Except for this system, no reliable standards to help building owners ensure that buildings (new or refurbished) have the best available BACS technology. No standards are available to help building owners ensure that their building keeps performing as well as when it was first commissioned. The closest match to these requirements is the EN 15232 standard (Energy performance of buildings – Impact of Building Automation, Controls and Building Management) which is the base of the eu.bac system audit. The System Certification Scheme of eu.bac addresses the principal difficulty in the BACS industry that systems may not be installed and used so as to achieve available efficiencies. It also addresses the tendency of systems to deteriorate without proper maintenance.
The recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (2002/91/EC) attempts to reduce EU energy consumption by 5–6% (60–80 Mtoe) by 2020. The scope of the Directive includes existing buildings undergoing renovation.