For a number of years, the greater Brussels region has been implementing policies aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the capital’s housing. While these policies have a significant impact on new buildings, which must be constructed according to strict norms, older buildings are subject to few obligations and are therefore lagging behind in terms of reducing their energy consumption. This is all the more true for co-owned apartment blocks, which have to contend with internal obstacles, such as property management firms that are out of their depth and unable to obtain consent from a qualified majority (75% for major investments) of individual owners. The latter can be reticent about applying solutions, especially when these will result in higher costs to ensure compliance, as is often the case when renovating energy systems, for example replacing boilers.<\/p>\n
For this reason, the company go4green was created. It provides funding to replace existing heating systems (if necessary) and install a cogeneration system. Cogeneration makes it possible to produce both electricity and heat from the same installed system supplied by a single fuel, gas in this case. What’s more, it does so more efficiently than can be achieved by producing the two energies separately (i.e. electricity from a power plant and heat from condensing boilers). Result: gas consumption is cut by 18-25%, which means CO2<\/sub> emissions are reduced too. Go4Green’s contribution doesn’t stop there; the company is also introducing a remote monitoring system for the installations, meaning that a building can limit consumption to the exact quantity of resources it needs, depending on the time of year and its specific characteristics.<\/p>\n It doesn’t take long before the results start to show.<\/p>\n