Description
The project ENERTUN was born in response to the need of reducing electricity consumption in road tunnels. Infrastructure owners have facilities not designed under the premise of energy efficiency. As a result, the cost of electricity of operation of road tunnels is very high. One of the challenges faced by authorities is to promote energy efficiency in road tunnels.To address this need, the project is based on 4 pillars: • Taking advantage of energy resources. • Saving unnecessary consumption. • Rationalizing protocols of systems. • Provide tools that allow the monitoring and forecasting of energy consumption. The solutions obtained can include the development of: • Full facilities, designed in a larger scope that includes energy efficiency as part of the process, or • Individual devices, enabling more efficient or innovative energy use, or • Development of tools and protocols that optimize the management and allow the • analysis of the operation of systems
Summary of project results
Throughout the Enertun project, many work projects have been undertaken aimed at increasing energy efficiency in the road tunnels domain: A research campaign has been carried out concerning the current technologies that allow to improve the energy efficiency in several domains and investigate the likeliness of their use in a road tunnel. A system for tracking and energy consumption measurement has been developed. A mathematical model has been developed as well, which is aimed at studying road tunnels’ energy consumption. A study about likely measures for increasing energy efficiency has been done, assessing their technical viability. A scale - prototype has been built for the Folgoso Tunnel, which has been tested, verifying that its global efficiencies were lower than expected and that its performance depends more than expected on meteorological factors. As a result of the project, it has been obtained a prototype system able to make profit of the external luminance.
Summary of bilateral results
The project ENERTUN accounted with the effective collaboration of the Norwegian Agency Statens Vergvesen; the equivalent of the Spanish Ministry of Public Works, as owner public infrastructure, particularly roads. The R+D tunnels department has been involved in the development of the project. Their work has been focused on: -Sharing information on technical parameters of tunnels in Norwegian roads. -Advising on the development of technical analysis such tasks and knowledge of the state of the art in energy efficiency in tunnels. -Allow access for data collection of Norwegian tunnels. The results obtained in the development of the WPs have been shared with Statens Vegvesen and subsequently adapted with their feedback.